Eleanor

one year without Liam. one year that has proven that fandom is stronger than grief.

“It’s definitely brought up feelings like that. Look, there’s now only three other people on the planet that can deeply understand my professional journey. Like you never say never, right? I can’t ever imagine, I’m not sure it would be right to him, like say sake of argument 25 years time it’s like a fucking Oasis thing, they offer us an arm and a leg and they’re like come back and do this many shows. I don’t know, yeah, I think it just completely put a pin in all that and the irony is there was no one campaigning for One Direction to get back together more than Liam. And like I would say I came in a close second actually. Like definitely another important thing to mention about Liam which I thought was incredible. There’s a time where I felt like me and Liam were professionally losing together. We were struggling to be solo artists and find true success and we were kind of struggling together. And then Liam had little moments where he had like really successful singles and they stream really well and he’d like feel really good about that. But at that time nothing was really working for me and in my job. So, I was really proud of him and I’d messaged him and stuff and then not to the same weight, but kind of role reversed a little bit and Liam start was struggling a little bit more professionally and I just started just started to understand the picture a little bit more, started doing more touring and stuff like that. And like for example, when I made a documentary in a film about like my life after One Direction and Liam came to the premiere. Now, I’ll just say this ‘cause I was going to mince me words, but none of the other boys would have done that, fact. Boys out the band, the lads in One Direction.Would I have even done that? I would like to sit here now and say, “Yeah, I think I would” but I don’t know truthfully. And the point being that me empathizing how I was a couple of years prior to that Liam was sat in a cinema watching a film about how I had been successful in the last 12 months when he was struggling with his own things. And it’s something that I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to do. I’m not sure the other boys would have. And basically all that is to sum that up is just utterly putting himself second. There’s no way that wouldn’t have had a certain kind of weight on him because as you said, we’re all human and we naturally compare. So, you know, there might be things that were happening there that he was he was wanting for. And I think just the fact that he turned up on that day and was there for me and I just did the role reverse in my head and just imagined how challenging that that could be and it’s just a real testament to Liam and he couldn’t have been more happy. And it’s another great example, right, of this of where the fucking internet are, it’s just horrible place at times. He put up — and luckily I know someone will have screenshotted it ‘cause he deleted in the end. But he put up this beautiful post after my premiere for this documentary. Like an essay, a fucking essay, like stuff that he’s never said to me before. It was like the sweetest, nicest fucking shit and then about two days later, he deleted it because the fans were just caning him for it. Just saying that he was like, you know, bandwagon kind of, you know what it’s like. It’s a very small percentage of people, but they make a lot of noise and sometimes it’ll push you to a point of like even deleting a post. But that being an example of him just really putting himself second and really trying to say to the world how proud he was of me and and the end goal was more ridicule. And all I would say in any regard like that, not just Liam, in any person like that, after you judge, 'cause sometimes it’s human nature to judge. After you judge, just give those things just a little bit more thought. So take the tour thing for example, and he’s at the (Niall’s) tour show and people were people were making comments of how much he was loving the attention. On the surface level, that’s someone who wants attention. If you just look a little bit deeper, that’s someone who’s just been in the biggest band in the world and wants those situations again, who hasn’t had those live situations again and craves for them. The reason also Liam could be misunderstood is because he didn’t really operate with a filter, you know. So, he would just feel something and say it and there you go.”

💌 Monday, 10 February 2014