Roman Kemp close to tears as he opens up on Lewis Capaldi’s Tourette’s diagnosis

The Independent

Roman Kemp close to tears as he gives speech for Lewis CapaldiSource @rollingstoneuk, Instagram

Transcript

00:00 So you know it's Lewis Capaldi, right?

00:04 Now, the reason why Lewis has won this award, as many of you will know,

00:10 there was an amazing performance that he put on at Glastonbury.

00:14 Well, all of us would call it an amazing performance at Glastonbury.

00:17 To him, that was a performance that I think has changed his life for the better.

00:22 That performance was one of the hardest things I think any of his friends and his family had to watch

00:28 because you could see how much he was trying to get through that

00:31 all whilst battling with something that he has been going through in his personal life

00:34 that he's shown through his amazing documentary on Netflix.

00:38 And that's Tourette's. That's something that Lewis lives with every single day

00:42 and is dealing with. It's part of him. It's part of who he is.

00:47 And it was after that documentary came out and it was after that gig at Glastonbury

00:52 that I remember speaking to him and I remember he was gutted.

00:58 And you know, that was his big moment and he felt like it had been overtaken

01:01 by this thing that he had been living with.

01:04 And I remember having this conversation with him and I remember him saying

01:07 that he was thinking about taking some time off and stepping away from everything.

01:12 And it was the best thing I ever heard him say.

01:15 And I know that for him that's a scary thing and I know there's a lot of artists in this room

01:20 that have that voice in the back of their head sometimes,

01:22 they think, "This is getting a lot."

01:25 You know, I haven't seen my family, I haven't hung out with my real friends,

01:29 I'm losing touch with who I am.

01:32 And sometimes in life, you know, the mental health thing gets thrown around a lot

01:35 and there's a lot of people that go, "Well, I look after my mental health,

01:38 I do this and this app and blah, blah." And that's amazing.

01:40 Everyone has their own way of approaching things.

01:43 But sometimes artists in particular, and I'm saying this a lot of the times

01:47 to a lot of the record labels and the, you know, promoters that are in the room tonight,

01:51 sometimes artists are the people that are forgotten about in this.

01:56 We put these people on this stage, we put them in front of thousands of people,

01:59 in front of stadiums, and we expect them to come off stage to be okay

02:03 because they're getting paid loads of money.

02:05 Who cares?

02:07 But every now and again, someone like Lewis will come around and say,

02:10 "Actually, do you know what? I'm not okay.

02:13 There's a point where I do need to step back, really regroup,

02:17 see my friends, see my family, focus on who I really am,

02:20 and take time out, proper time out."

02:22 And I implore artists to do it.

02:24 And I implore labels to allow their artists to do that,

02:27 to not put that much pressure on them.

02:29 And that is why Lewis Capaldi is a game changer.

02:33 He is one of those artists that stood up and said that.

02:36 (applause)

02:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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