Louis Tomlinson reignites feud with Dan Walker as he accuses the former BBC Breakfast presenter of ‘lacking empathy’

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Louis Tomlinson has resumed his public disagreement with Dan Walker, criticizing him for being unsympathetic.

In 2020, singer Louis Tomlinson, now 33, publicly disagreed with radio host Ryan Walker, 48, online. This happened after Tomlinson expressed his frustration that Walker kept asking about his deceased mother and sister during interviews for his new song, despite prior requests not to.

In 2016, Louis lost his mother, Johannah Deakin, to leukemia. Sadly, his younger sister, Félicité Tomlinson, passed away in 2019 due to an accidental overdose involving cocaine, Xanax, and OxyContin.

Following his appearance on the BBC, Louis announced on Twitter that he would never appear on the network again. In response, the interviewer, Walker, explained that he had only been asking about a song on Louis’s new album that was about his mother, and emphasized that he hadn’t focused on the difficult subject for long.

Even after more than five years, Tomlinson still holds a grudge against Walker, now at 5 News, for the questions he felt were inappropriately pushed during their previous encounter.

During an appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast, Louis stated that Steven Bartlett’s line of questioning seemed to indicate a lack of personal experience with grief. He explained that if Bartlett had understood loss, he would have honored Louis’s wish not to discuss his deceased family.

Tomlinson recalled appearing on BBC Breakfast News, joking that it’s a tough slot even for the hosts. He was there to discuss his single, ‘Two Of Us’.

We’ve clearly stated what you can and cannot talk about.

A journalist, Walker, brought up those issues at the time, and I was aware we weren’t supposed to discuss them.

It doesn’t bother me if certain topics, like One Direction, are off-limits. However, I’m deeply concerned when someone is already dealing with personal loss and you still ask insensitive or painful questions.

After the interview, I had a strong reaction – something I used to do more often when I was younger. I immediately went on Twitter and declared I’d never work for the BBC again. The journalist then pointed out that if I write songs about difficult topics like grief, it’s reasonable to expect questions about them.

Tomlinson added: ‘And my instinctive thought was, there’s somebody who hasn’t experience grief.

They couldn’t have done it, because if they had, they wouldn’t have made such a thoughtless and insensitive remark.

Louis experienced a deeply painful time, losing his mother and sister within three years.

Tomlinson recently told The Guardian that despite experiencing difficult times in 2019, he’s found a surprising benefit. He explained that going through those hardships has actually made him stronger in other areas of his life, as he feels he’s already faced the most challenging experiences he’ll ever have to.

Tomlinson generally avoids talking about his sadness, choosing to express his feelings through his music. That’s why he didn’t answer questions about his mother or sister during his BBC Breakfast interview with Walker.

Following a disagreement on Twitter, Walker shared that he received death threats from One Direction fans after he didn’t respond to requests from Louis.

Speaking on the Gold Minds podcast with Olympian Jessica Ennis-Hill, Walker said:

‘I used to get weird death threats from people.

I once interviewed Louis Tomlinson and asked him a perfectly reasonable question about his mother’s passing.

We had previously informed his team that we would be making this request, and he reacted negatively to it, expressing his displeasure.

With One Direction, the volume of messages was overwhelming – we were getting thousands every few minutes. It got so intense that I even received death threats from about five different people that day.

The majority of attendees were from Brazil, so I figured I was probably safe from being exposed to the virus, unless anyone had traveled a long distance. It’s always a possibility, though.

Football is similar – you can make a harmless comment about a team, and suddenly it becomes a big deal, with people getting offended.

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2025-10-13 19:07