Rob Delaney has revealed he was worried he wouldn’t be able to love his fourth child because his heart was “broken” after losing his two-year-old son Henry to cancer in 2018.
The 47-year-old comedy star, who is from Massachusetts but lives in north London, spoke about losing her baby, depression, alcoholism and working alongside Carrie Fisher on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs with presenter Lauren Laverne.
In the candid interview, Rob admitted he was worried he wouldn’t be able to love Henry’s younger brother after his death and said his heart was “broken.”
She said: “I remember thinking, when I was about to be born, ‘Well, my heart has been shattered, it’s been torn to pieces and destroyed, and it’s just rubbish, so I’m going to take care of this child, feed it, dress it in clothes that fit it, am I going to be able to love it? I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that anymore.”
“But the nanosecond he left my wife’s body, I looked at him and started crying. I was so in love with him… I love him desperately. But you have to feel and honor your pain. When feelings come, it’s best to let them out.”
Rob Delaney revealed he was worried he wouldn’t be able to love his fourth child because his heart was “broken” after losing his two-year-old son Henry (pictured) to cancer.
Eight years ago, Rob’s one-year-old son Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumor and after undergoing surgery and intensive treatment, Henry died in 2018.
Before Henry died, his parents told him that they were expecting another child.
She said: ‘He had to know that this family that loved him was alive and growing and that there was someone we were going to tell about him.
‘We knew they would not overlap physically on this Earth, even though Henry’s younger brother was born in the same room Henry died in, our living room.’
Rob said he would like to spend his final moments in that living room where he said goodbye to his son in 2018 and welcomed his fourth child later that year, but they no longer live in that house.
Rob, whose credits include Catastrophe and Deadpool 2, said: ‘We don’t live there anymore, but when we moved in I asked the landlord, “Listen, if you’re ever going to sell this place, would you let me know first because I’d like to buy it?” so when I’m 81 I can crawl in here and die, in the same room that my son died in, that my other son was born in.
In the emotional interview, the American-born star spoke about Henry’s final months.
She said: “He had a good death. In his last months, we had four and a half months where we knew he was going to die, his brothers were very much in love with him.
The 47-year-old comedy star, who is from Massachusetts but lives in north London, spoke about losing her baby, depression, alcoholism and working alongside Carrie Fisher on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs with presenter Lauren Laverne. She is pictured with her late son Henry.
Rob previously shared a photograph of his late son Henry sleeping on Instagram, taken when he was just 15 months old and had just started chemotherapy.
‘They all loved each other so much… I watched a four-year-old and a six-year-old hold their brother’s body, I watched them take incredible care of him and learn difficult things because it took really intense things to take care of him.
“I hate to think about them not having it. I really hate it.
“They talk about him all the time and they love him, and they smile when they talk about him and they love looking at pictures of him and he’s a very important part of our lives.”
Rob also revealed that he still talks to his “funny and smart” son.
He said: “I don’t know what words to use, I don’t care. I talk to him. I don’t know if he listens to me. It doesn’t matter… He is my son, I am his father and I love him.”
Delaney said he and his wife Leah had been unable to leave London “for many reasons… one of which is that I like to go and get my hands on the playground slide that Henry went down.”
“I like seeing the nurses, I meet them from time to time, who looked after him. London is very important to me and London looked after him very well,” she added.
Elsewhere, Rob spoke about his struggles with alcoholism, saying he had his first drink when he was just 12 years old.
Rob revealed that his other children still talk about their late, “funny and smart” brother (Henry when he was a baby)
Rob said: “London is very important to me and London looked after him very well,” referring to the nurses who looked after Henry in his final months.
In December 2018, Rob revealed that his wife Leah had given birth to their “magical” fourth child that August, seven months after Henry passed away.
He said: “Drinking made me feel better, happier, complete, relaxed, every time I had a drink I thought ‘this is it’. I first got drunk when I was 12, and then started drinking more regularly when I was 14. I had alcoholism on both sides of my family, so I suffered from it later on too.”
The actor has been sober for more than two decades after a car accident in 2002 prompted him to stop drinking.
Speaking about the accident, he said: ‘It really freaked me out, at this point I’m drinking to cure the hangover from the night before and I’m becoming more and more of a maintenance drinker.
‘One night I passed out at a friend’s flat after a party and then in the middle of the night, I don’t remember any of it, I got up and thought, “I should go for a drive” and I did, and thank God there was no one else involved, but I crashed my car into a building, it was terrifying.
‘I woke up being admitted to hospital by several police officers and felt an element of relief because I knew I could no longer hide from people the consequences of my drinking.’
Rob was offered a stint in rehab instead of jail and recently celebrated 22 years of sobriety.
The comedian admitted that he suffered from depression after quitting drinking and sought treatment for it.
She said: “I started treatment for very severe depression. It had a very physical component: I would wake up, brush my teeth in the morning and when the brush touched my tongue I would vomit, my libido would disappear, I couldn’t sleep at all, that was the worst part, my body would hurt so much and then mentally my brain would tell me to kill myself all the time.”
Rob described working with Carrie Fisher, when she played his mother in Catastrophe in 2014, as “beyond spectacular.”
He added: ‘I remember being really nervous, like shaking with nerves when she first came on set, she did a great job, she was the only person on the show that we let improvise and she did a great job.
We know she’s funny and we know she’s great, but she was also very kind, she was a wonderful person to talk to about Henry and she knew everything about him.
‘She was very sensitive and attentive, holding my hand, asking me questions and giving me little gifts for me and my children.
‘There’s the Carrie Fisher we all know from TV and movies, who is incredibly funny, and in real life I’m happy to say she had a beautiful presence and made everyone feel warm around her.’
Desert Island Discs was issued in BBC Radio 4 and Also available on BBC Sounds
