West Lothian superstar Lewis Capaldi has revealed the effects fame has had on his life, from suffering terrifying panic attacks and a crippling shoulder spasm.
In his upcoming Netflix documentary, which will be released on April 5, the 26-year-old says: “I feel like I’m in a race against the clock to get my mental health in order.”
The Pointless singer revealed that the pressures of global stardom have sometimes left him unable to cope. He said the stress of writing his second album cause his Tourette’s to get so bad he halted recording music and filming the documentary.
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How I’m Feeling Now was filmed across four years, featuring performances across the country combined with a look at his behind the scenes life. Lewis’ parents, Mark and Carol, tell of their fears for their son as they watched him skyrocket to fame - morphing from a carefree teen into an overworked superstar.
About his darkest moments, Lewis says: “When I have a panic attack it feels like I’m going insane, completely disconnected from reality.
“I can’t breathe. I can’t feel my breath going in. I get dizzy. I feel like there’s something happening to my head. I’m sweating. My whole body starts to do what my shoulder does, like pure convulsing.
“The big thing for me with it is, I’m always going to feel like this now, this is me. F***. This is it. Either I feel like I’m going to be stuck like that forever or I’m going to die.”
Dad Mark reveals Carol sometimes spends seven hours on the phone trying to calm Lewis down and knows if the phone rings in the night it’s their fourth and youngest child in distress. The documentary starts with cameras following the singer as he tries to write songs for his second album during the Covid pandemic.
Lewis’s debut album, Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, was the biggest selling UK album of 2019 and 2020 and breakout song Someone You Loved was No1 in the UK and the US. But the pressures of following it, his imposter syndrome, hypochondria and his parents moving from his childhood home in Whitburn cause a storm of stress which results in the film documenting Lewis’s physical and mental decline.
As he struggles to find his mojo, he admits: “The way I write songs is I sit at a piano for four hours and hate myself. It feels like, ‘This is f****** hard and I’m s*** at writing songs.’
“My twitch that I have gets worse when I sit down to play piano. Physically painful. I get really short of breath and my back f****** kills me but I’ve got to do it.”
His dad notices he’s twitching and tells him he “need to do something” and suggests a chiropractor. Carol realises he’s worried the new album isn’t going to be as good as the first.
Lewis admits: “I don’t think I’ve ever been more insecure in my life as I am now. The success of the first one made me more insecure … about my own abilities.”
His twitching was already being noticed before Covid and in March 2020 he stops his gig at Wembley.
Mark says: “He stopped singing so I bolted, ran down the stairs and the crowds went quiet and I shouted, ‘Luigi (his name for Lewis), keep going, keep going’, and I’m breaking my heart.”
Interviewed on a darkened stage with a spotlight, Lewis recalls that time. He says: “This twitch became out of control. It was absolutely horrific. Started to get in my head about these pressures … other people are depending on me.”
With Covid meaning he can’t tour or go to a studio, he tries to create a new album via Zoom. At first he seems to enjoy being away from the rollercoaster of fame. Driving near home, he says: “Nothing further from the Grammys than Whitburn.
“I do love where I’m from. I feel like I’m home and everything is the same as it always is.”
The documentary shows a close-knit working class family whose son has suddenly become a superstar. They enjoy banter and his mum even reveals he once phoned her up to pick him up after a one-night stand, and that he still walks about the family home in his pants.
But behind the laughter the pressure of the new album is dogging Lewis. He says: “Making the first album, touring the first album, recording it was as close as dreams coming true as you could possibly get.
“But as soon as the first album does well, it’s like, ‘Can he do it again?’”
Carol says: “It wouldn’t be worth it if he becomes a different person.”
One catalyst for his mental health crisis is his parents moving from the “safety net” of his childhood home, where he wrote Someone You Loved in his dad’s garden shed.
He says: “This not being here any more feels like one of the last things about my life before.”
The documentary then follows Lewis as he tries writing songs with different people on Zoom, then in London and then in LA. Lewis admits he has imposter syndrome and even an email from Sir Elton John doesn’t shake his doubts about his ability as a songwriter.
In LA, as his twitching gets worse, he is seen breaking down and his parents describe the panic attacks he can have.
It’s Carol he phones when he’s having a panic attack and she can talk to him for up to seven hours at times. Lewis, she reveals, is also a hypochondriac who during primary school told her he had a brain tumour.
Lewis says: “I went to a therapist and she was like, ‘Do you not think that’s got something to do with the fact that your grandmother and your aunt both died when you were three and four within a year of one another?’”
Lewis, who wrote chart-topper Before You Go about his Aunt Pat, said: “We were outside the flat the night my dad went up the stairs and found her.”
As his struggles worsen, recording of both the documentary and the album are stopped for four months. By the end, Lewis is seen happier with medications and a healthier lifestyle, finishing off Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, which is out on May 19.
● Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now will stream on Netflix on Wednesday.
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