Rob Delaney opens up about tragic loss and future hopes
Actor and comedian Rob Delaney revealed in an interview with the BBC that he wants to spend his final moments in the same room where his 2-year-old son died—a room where, shortly afterward, his second child was born.
1:34 PM EDT, July 9, 2024
You may know Rob Delaney from productions like "Catastrophe," "Black Mirror," "Deadpool 2," and more recently, "Argylle." Soon, you can see him in "Deadpool and Wolverine" in theaters. The British actor and comedian has endured traumatic experiences. In 2018, his 2-year-old son died from cancer. Delaney gave an extensive interview to the BBC, addressing this painful topic.
He wants to die in the same place as his son
In 2016, Rob Delaney received a BAFTA award for the screenplay of the comedy "Catastrophe." The next day, he and his wife learned that their son might have a brain tumor. Tests quickly confirmed the devastating diagnosis. "It was the heaviest pain in the world," wrote Delaney in his book "A Heart That Works," where he described what his family went through. On the day after his first birthday, their son had to be operated on. The parents stayed in a hotel near the hospital.
He wrote that he and his wife were extremely terrified, which resulted in them being particularly close to each other. The actor shared various intimate facts to help other parents who might be going through the same thing: "being terrified, crying, and practically hyperventilating with fear."
Delaney talks very openly and honestly about what he went through. In his latest interview with BBC Radio 4, he spoke more about the death of his son, who did not live to see his third birthday. He admitted that he asked the owner of the house they were renting to contact him if he wanted to sell the property.
"So that 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," he confessed.
Delaney confided that when his first son was still alive, he and his wife told him he would have a brother. "We knew that they would not overlap corporally on this Earth, even though Henry's younger brother was born in the same room that Henry died in, our living room," he added. The actor also said he was afraid of the second child's birth. He didn't know if he would be able to love his son.
"remember thinking, when he was about to be born, ''well my heart has been destroyed, it has been torn into pieces and destroyed, and it's just garbage, so I will take care of this kid, I will feed him, I will put him in clothing that fits, am I going to be able to love him? I don't know if I can do that anymore. But the nanosecond he exited my wife's body, I looked at him and started weeping, and I was so in love with him...I love him desperately," the actor said in the interview.
