Louis Tomlinson & Dan Walker: Feud Reignited Over ‘Lack of Empathy’

Louis Tomlinson has reignited his war of words with Dan Walker by slamming the former BBC Breakfast host for ‘lacking empathy’.

The One Direction star, 33, and Walker, 48, clashed on social media in 2020 after the singer criticised him for ignoring requests to avoid asking questions about his late mother and sister while promoting his latest single.

In 2016, Louis’s mum Johannah Deakin lost her battle with acute leukaemia and his younger sibling Félicité Tomlinson died in 2019 from an accidental overdose of a combination of cocaine, Xanax and OxyContin. 

After the BBC appearance, Louis promised never to appear on the BBC again during a Twitter outburst – to which Walker replied saying he was simply asking ‘about the song on your new album about your mum’ before insisting he did not ‘dwell’ on the sensitive topic.

However, more than five years on from the fiery exchange, Tomlinson still hasn’t forgiven Walker, who has since moved to 5 News, for his unwanted probing questions.

Appearing on The Diary of a CEO podcast, Louis said Walker’s questioning suggested he had ‘never experienced grief’, claiming he otherwise would have respected his request not to mention his late family members.

Tomlinson said: ‘I remember going on BBC Breakfast News and it’s one of those things, an early morning slot, not even the presenters want to be there let alone me at the time, I’m going on to talk about Two Of Us, the single.

‘Now we distinctly said, these are the things that are ok to mention, and please do not mention these things.

‘But I actually had a journalist at the time (Walker) who asked about those things and I’d known that we said don’t.

‘Sometimes on that list we might have do not speak about One Direction – this isn’t what I have a problem with – but when someone’s had their own grief and you’re still going to ask those types of questions, I find that really, really troubling.

‘What was interesting was I left the interview and I used to be good at this when I was a bit younger, took to Twitter and I was like “I’m never f**king working for the BBC again” and he came back at me, this journalist, he said, “well if you write a song about grief then expect to be asked about it”.’

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

‘They couldn’t possibly have because if they have, they wouldn’t make such a horrible, horrible, comment which just lacks all kind of empathy.’

Louis lost both his mum and sister in the space of three years during a hugely traumatic period of the star’s life.

Speaking about his losses in 2019, Tomlinson told the Guardian: ‘That whole dark side I’ve gone through, it sounds stupid to say, but it gives me strength everywhere else in my life, because that’s the darkest [expletive] that I’m going to have to deal with.’

Tomlinson rarely speaks about his grief, preferring to channel his emotions into this music, which is why questions regarding both his mother and sister were off limits for his chat with Walker on BBC Breakfast.

After their Twitter spat, Walker revealed he had been sent death threats by One Direction fans for ignoring Louis’s requests.

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

‘I used to get weird death threats from people.

‘I did an interview with Louis Tomlinson once and I asked him what was a perfectly legitimate question about the death of his mum.

‘And we’d already said to his people that we would ask that, and he took it badly, and wasn’t happy with it.

‘You know what it’s like with One Direction, there were thousands and thousands of messages coming every 10 minutes. I think five people threatened to kill me that day.

‘Most of them were from Brazil, so unless they’ve got serious air miles I think I was okay, but you do get that. 

‘And football’s another one, you might say something completely innocent about a team and then all of a sudden it blows up and people take it personally.’