Lottie Tomlinson has opened up about losing her mother and little sister shortly after each other (Picture: Getty / Rex / Instagram / felicitegrace)
Lottie Tomlinson has recalled the ‘nightmare’ of losing her mother to cancer, before her little sister’s death three years later when she was just 18.
The influencer, 24, is the sister of One Direction star Louis Tomlinson, who shot to international stardom as a teenager in the phenomenal boyband.
Louis has often spoken of his close relationship with mum Johannah Deakin, who died in December 2016 from cancer, including in his documentary All Of Those Voices.
The family were then hit with another tragedy not long later, when little sister Felicité died at 18 from an accidental drug overdose.
Now Lottie has opened up on the ‘shock’ of losing two close family members, as she spoke openly on podcast Grief Kind, run by bereavement charity Sue Ryder.
‘You felt like you were living in this nightmare,’ she admitted -but ‘while it’s horrendous and the worst thing you’ve ever been through … it strengthened us so much because we all had to look after each other.’
Louis and Lottie lost their mum Johannah in 2016, with four younger siblings to look after (Picture: Twitter)
The family were devastated by Deakin’s death, with Lottie describing her as ‘the centre of the family’
She described the months after her mother’s death as ‘surreal,’ admitting that as the eldest girl in the family she felt she took on the motherly role to the younger siblings.
As well as Louis, Felicité and Lottie, Deakin was also mum to twins Daisy and Phoebe, now 19, and twins Ernest and Doris, nine, who were just two years old when she died.
Less than three years later, Felicite – who they fondly called Fizz – died suddenly from a heart attack after taking cocaine.
‘When Fizz died, it was obviously such a shock,’ she said.
Their little sister Felicité died less than three years later aged just 18 (Picture: Instagram / felicitegrace)
‘It was like a disbelief that we were going to go through this again. It kind of felt like we were just coming through the other side of losing my mum. For it to happen again, it was just shocking.’
‘It felt like the world was against us – why was this happening again?’ she added. ‘Where is this going to end?’
The family rallied together once again, and ‘we’ve been through the worst thing ever.. and we’ve had it again … but we knew how it felt.’
‘You’d survived that. We’d got through that, by some miracle.’
Having somehow got through two devastating losses, Lottie went on to share her advice for anyone grieving, urging them to ‘be kind to themselves.’
Lottie and partner Lewis Burton recently welcomed their first child together, with the star now a mum herself (Picture: Getty)
The star previously spoke to Metro.co.uk about the difficulties of grieving while in the public eye.
‘It was definitely a nice thing because there was so much support and there was always so much love given to us online, and from the fans.
‘But I guess at the same time, it was hard because everything is kind of judged, what you’re doing and how you’re coping with it, and the ways that you’re dealing with it.’
She added: ‘I’m lucky that I’ve got to the point I’ve got to in my grief and I feel good in the way I live my life and cope with it now.
‘But it’s still hard and it’ll always be there. I think it’s about finding ways to cope with it.’
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‘It felt like the world was against us – why was this happening again?’