In 2022, Lewis Capaldi announced he has Tourette’s syndrome. He never planned on sharing it.

Lewis Capaldi has been making headlines over the past week after heartwarming footage of his performance in Frankfurt, Germany went viral, showing the artist struggling with Tourette's syndrome on-stage.

The Scottish singer attempted to push through his involuntary tics to sing one of his biggest hits, 'Someone You Loved', whilst his fans screamed in encouragement and helped him sing the final chorus. 

The footage shows the singer’s voice break as his shoulder twitches uncontrollably. 

Turning away from the microphone, his fans step in while he takes a moment.

🎵 Atteint du syndrome de Gilles de la Tourette, le chanteur Lewis Capaldi a pu compter sur l’aide de son public pour terminer sa chanson ! ❤️

🎥 Katharina shry pic.twitter.com/GSespnLuKU

— Le Média Positif 🍀 (@LMPositif) February 24, 2023

Capaldi announced he has Tourette's syndrome in September 2022 on Instagram Live, several months after receiving the news himself. 

In an interview with The Guardian, the singer shared how he felt the need to go public with his diagnosis after his tics were mistaken for a cocaine habit.

"Someone was tweeting: 'He was definitely on drugs, the way he was moving and the way he was talking.' I’m like: I’m already an anxious person," he said. 

"Do you really think I’m going to smash loads of cocaine before I go and stand in front of 12,000 people? This isn’t the f**king 70s. I’m not Tommy Lee. I can’t handle that. And people on cocaine are usually bodily quite chilled. They just chat sh*t." 

"I mean, I do that a lot as well," he added.

Tourette’s syndrome is a condition that involves uncontrollable tics such as repetitive movement, unwanted sounds, and or unwanted vocalisations, that are heightened when individuals feel anxiety and stress. 

The neurological disorder is currently incurable, but can be managed through medication and therapy.

Celebrities including Billie Eilish, Seth Rogen and David Beckham have varying degrees of Tourette's.

"It was like, 'Oh! That makes a lot of f***ing sense'," Capaldi said when asked if the diagnosis was a relief on The Jonathan Ross Show.

"I thought I had a degenerative disease, so to be told it was in fact Tourette's, was quite the relief," he said.

Capaldi’s tics come in the form of uncontrollable shoulder and head jerking, eyebrow movements, heightened fidgeting and involuntary deep breaths.

"The movements are more exaggerated now. So, I do my neck cracks a lot; I, kind of, lift my left shoulder up, my face moves a bit and I do these deep breaths," he said when appearing on Capital FM.

"I can see micro versions of them in interviews that I’ve done in the past."

Find out more about tics from a pediatric psychologist here. Post continues below.

Although there's no cure, the artist has implemented things to make his symptoms more manageable - including Botox injections in his shoulder.

"I haven’t really learned much about it. I’m learning. I’ve got Botox on my shoulders to stop it moving," he said during his initial Instagram Live.

"The worst thing about it is when I’m excited, I get it, when I’m stressed, I get it. Some days it’s more painful than others. It’s not a big deal, It looks a lot worse than it is."

He also uses anxiety management and medication to control the condition.

"It ebbs and flows," he said on The Zach Sang Show in 2022.

"Unfortunately, there’s no clear 'here’s this thing we can do nothing about.' But now it’s about handling my general anxiety."

According to the BBC, Capaldi joined a clinical trial with 100 others at the University of Nottingham in January 2023.

The trial involved wearing a device, much like a smartwatch, that blocks the signals from the brain that are motoring the tics. 

"The results were remarkable," a professor heading the trial said. 

"Lewis stated that the stimulation made him feel calmer and the device clearly suppressed the head and shoulder tics which can be quite painful for him."

It's unsure whether he can wear the device on a daily basis or when performing.

Lewis Capaldi is fast becoming the most beloved musician of his generation. 

With the combination of his insane talent, social media presence and hilarious Scottish personality, he's become popular when singing and not.

At just 26, the artist has been nominated for a number of awards, taken home two Brit Awards, and topped the charts.

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A post shared by Lewis Capaldi (@lewiscapaldi)

Born in Glasgow, Capaldi's had a passion for music from early on. 

He was on the drums at two and singing in pubs by 11. 

"I started playing the guitar when I was nine, because my older brother, who is six years older than me, he was doing it," Capaldi said, according to Glasgow Live. 

"I started writing songs from that age too, and when I turned 11, I wanted to play gigs. My older brother, he was in a band, and he got me into pubs.

"Obviously I was 11, so I wasn't allowed to be in a pub, so I'd have to go and hide in the bathroom before I played, and I'd always leave immediately after. 

"I did that, kicking around throughout Scotland from then until the age of 19 or 20."

In just four months, the singer went from singing in empty pubs to releasing the UK's fasting selling album in 2019.

Capaldi was discovered on SoundCloud. 

His now-manager Ryan Walter came across a video he uploaded and immediately knew he'd found something.

"The bit I enjoy the least about [being a manager] is sitting, trawling through SoundCloud and YouTube for seven hours a day, but that’s what I did. I would open, no joke, about 500 SoundCloud tabs at a time, listening to 10 seconds of each artist to get a read on it," Walter told Music Business Worldwide.

"About four and a half months into that search, I was in my mum’s house, and I stumbled across a recording of Lewis on SoundCloud singing into his iPhone in his bedroom. 

"Immediately I thought: 'This is amazing, I’m in'."

Capaldi only had two songs published on his account at the time, each sitting at less than 20 plays.

"I called him, told him he was incredible, and then for the next six months, while he was still at college in Glasgow, I’d pay for him to fly down [to London] and stay at my house so he could do writing sessions," Walter said.

The now 26-year-old has just achieved his fourth number one single.

Feature Image: Getty.

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