Louis Tomlinson has opened up about how difficult he found his first solo tour.
The former One Direction star, 34, said his first live shows following the band’s split were a “tough one mentally”.
“My first tour was so f****** terrifying to me and maybe because I was pretty hard on myself, weird little paradox every night of feelings the adrenaline and the love of the crowd all the while scolding myself in my head,” the singer wrote on X.
“I had some incredible shows that tour and proved a lot to myself but still it was a tough one mentally.”
Though fans reassured Tomlinson - who released his first album Walls in 2020 - they couldn’t tell he was finding performing hard.
“You made it though. And you keep blowing us away,” one wrote.
“Your music, your stage presence and the space you give us mean so much to so many of us. We are so endlessly proud of you.”
Another added: “How silly! I loved that tour, it was really great in many ways.”
Last month, Tomlinson admitted it was “really difficult” to write songs about anything other than the death of his former bandmate Liam Payne.
The singer said he did not want to explain which songs on his new album How Did I Get Here? were about Payne, but said “people will find what they need”.
He told presenter Zane Lowe on his Apple Music show: “Listen, when something like that happens in your life, it’s really difficult to write anything else.
“I remember the first time that I experienced grief. How can you write a love song when you’re feeling the feelings that you’re feeling? It feels so unimportant to everything that’s going around in your head.
“So, yeah, there are definitely moments where I’ve written about him kind of directly and then other moments that are a bit more subconscious. But it’s also not something I want to over-explain because, it won’t be too hard for people to join the dots.”
Asked about the song Dark To Light, which has been rumoured to be about Payne, Tomlinson added: “It’s a really intimidating concept to entertain, definitely, because there aren’t enough words really to explain love like that.
“But it certainly is one of the songs on the record that, pretty much every time I hear it, there’ll be a moment where I get goosebumps and drift off in my head and have a little think about it.
“It’ll probably be a challenging one to do live, but it is still one that I want to do live.”
Payne died at the age of 31 in October 2024 after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina, and the boyband’s surviving members, Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Zayn Malik, reunited at his funeral alongside former manager Simon Cowell in November that year.
