Louis Tomlinson: ‘Fame can be really dehumanising’

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While checking into the hospitality area at Glastonbury Festival this summer, the entertainment journalist Ellise Shafer heard a stranger behind her yelling: “Glastoooo!” Only it wasn’t really a stranger, she later wrote. It was an exuberant Louis Tomlinson with a gaggle of friends, hauling a rucksack and primed for a week of live music.

Tomlinson laughs when I tell him about this. The solo artist and former One Direction member has become a regular fixture at Glastonbury – last year he was heralded as a “hero” when he brought a TV to the campsite so revellers could watch England play Slovakia in the Euros. “It’s the kind of place [where] I’m just in a better mood,” he says. “People might see me out and about looking a bit grumpy. At Glastonbury? Definitely not.”