The Late Late Show viewers were left in tears after Patrick Kielty’s moving interview with Rob Delaney.
During his appearance on Friday night’s episode of The Late Late Show, the comedian opened up about the death of his son Henry.
Henry tragically passed away in January 2018 at the age of two-and-a-half, after receving extensive treatment for a brain tumour for two years.
Rob said that he wrote about Henry’s life, death and lasting impact in his book, A Heart That Works, because he “wanted to talk about him and wanted more people to know about him.”
Late Late Show viewers and audience were shown photos of Henry – including a snap of him the day he was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and one of him after he had the tumour removed.
The comedian revealed that “around his first birthday” Henry moved into the hospital, where he stayed for 14 months while he was received treatment, before spending his last seven months in the family’s home.
Rob and his wife share three children – the eldest two cared for Henry throughout his illness.
Rob said: “One thing we did do well is we constantly had his older brothers in hospital – regularly there’d be one hospital bed with three kids in it.”
“I’m grateful we knew to keep the kids [together] as much as possible.”
“And then when we did finally get him home for the last seven months of his life… when we finally got them back under the same roof, we were very happy.”
Revealing how he explained to his sons that their brother was going to pass away, the comedian said: “We build up these egos – understandably – through the decades of living, and I’m in my 40s and thinking, ‘How do I shield and protect the kids from this?'”
“And you can’t do that… they sense something’s wrong – be it an impending divorce, or someone’s sick, or some weird lie that people aren’t being honest about… kids can tell, and so you can’t hide things from kids.”
“It’s better to tell them the truth than have them to create some monster in their minds that’s much worse.”
“So yeah, our kids knew that Henry had brain cancer. They knew that brain tumours kill people, and when the tumour come back, and we knew that it would kill him, they said, ‘Is he going to die?’, and we said ‘Yeah, yeah he is.'”
“It was very humbling to learn. Your kid dying is just so awful… our kids helped us as much – or more, a very real possibility – than we helped them. So they were amazing, and are amazing.”
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Henry sadly passed away on Rob’s birthday, but the comedian admitted that he was glad it happened then instead of his other son’s birthday – which was five days later.
“When we could see that Henry was dying… I remember thinking, ‘Please don’t let him die on his brother’s birthday.'”
“So there was, among all the other terrible feelings… the tiniest bit of relief that merely my birthday was totally destroyed forever, rather than the kid who was turning five. I hate birthdays now.”
A host of Late Late Show viewers have since taken to X, formerly known as Twitter, to praise Rob for being so open and candid about his tragic experience.
A tough watch, listening to Rob Delaney talk so eloquently about his son Henry, and loss in general. Interview beautifully handled by Patrick Kielty too. #latelate pic.twitter.com/GJpfFFubv7
— John Kelly | thejohnkelly.bsky.social (@thejohnkelly) September 29, 2023
Powerful & moving interview on the #LateLateShow. Rob Delaney talking about the death of his son Henry aged 3 from a brain tumour. Half his face was paralysed from this tumour & he was tube fed.Puts into perspective the vitrolic rants people have on Twitter over literally nothing pic.twitter.com/syaIsydYKB
— Marie O’Neill (@marie_librarian) September 29, 2023
Much love to @robdelaney & his beautiful family.
Remembering ‘big brother’ Henry 💫#LateLateShow https://t.co/M4YnNHwWSt
— Anam Cara (@AnamCaraSupport) September 29, 2023
Tonight’s #LateLateShow was a triumph. Great guests. The Rob Delaney interview was sensitively handled – Kielty brings humanity as well as humour. Mick Lynch was an inspired booking. And Carl Frampton, another northerner. Loving the all-Ireland vibe.
— Lisa Fagan (@lisa_fagan) September 29, 2023
Life and death are knit together…
…and all watching tonight united in that hope and belief. ..that the day will come when birthday can be celebrated again@robdelaney #latelate #LateLateShow pic.twitter.com/3slj19920s
— Brian Kerrigan (@peterhenry9) September 29, 2023
