Irish Examiner view: Brave statement from Lewis Capaldi

Singer cancels all his commitments up to Glastonbury

Lewis Capaldi announced he will cancel commitments up until Glastonbury at the end of the month.

The news that singer Lewis Capaldi has cancelled all his commitments up to Glastonbury, towards the end of this month, came with a detailed explanation.

Capaldi has outlined his mental health struggles in the past and was equally frank this week when he outlined the reasons for those cancellations. 

In a statement, he said: “The last few months have been full on both mentally and physically, I haven’t been home properly since Christmas and at the moment I am struggling to get to grips with it all. I need to take a moment to rest and recover...” 

The singer apologised to those who had already spent money on tickets and accommodation for those shows, while he also promised to donate €50,000 to the ISPCC — one of the cancelled shows was a benefit gig for the Irish charity.

Capaldi’s previous candour about his mental health means this is not quite the surprise it might otherwise have been, but he still deserves huge credit for taking this decision and for being so open about it.

There is no comparison between the modern level of openness about mental health and the secrecy surrounding the subject in past decades, but that still does not make it any easier for someone in the public eye like Capaldi to be so frank about his struggles. 

His honesty is sure to resonate among his fanbase and beyond.