Fans help Lewis Capaldi sing one of his biggest hits after he experiences twitches during live show
Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi discovered his fans truly have his back earlier this week during a live show in Frankfurt.
The 26-year-old was performing his hit song, Someone You Loved, when he appeared to start twitching and then stopped singing.
Capaldi had recently revealed he has Tourette syndrome, a neurological condition which, according to Tourette Canada, causes people to experience sudden, unpredictable and "involuntary movements or sounds" called tics.
When he couldn't get the words out, some of the 15,000 or so fans watching jumped in to fill in the lyrics.
In a video on TikTok posted after the 90-minute concert, Capaldi said the twitching happens in his shoulder when he gets nervous, tired or excited, but that it's not painful.
"I'm absolutely fine," he said.
"I'm tired — and I'm also very excited because this whole arena is singing my songs back to me."
He thanked the people who jumped in with the words, even joking about it, saying: "Get a ticket if you haven't ... come see me twitch, live and in person."
Tourette diagnosis
It's estimated that about one in 100 people in Canada live with Tourette syndrome, according to Tourette Canada. The condition usually begins in childhood, "which can make learning and coping more challenging," executive director Lisa McCoy said in an email to CBC News.
She said people like Capaldi "reassure and inspire the many thousands of Canadians like them" while creating awareness about the disorder.
"It is heartening to see prominent entertainers and anyone living with Tourette syndrome successfully working in their chosen professions," McCoy said. "They also help to create awareness of Tourette syndrome, which is a much more common neurological condition than most people realize."
Capaldi went public abut his condition in an Instagram Live post last September because he said he "didn't want people to think I was taking cocaine or something."
He said the diagnosis earlier that year made "so much sense" to him because he could see his shoulder twitching during interviews in 2018.
In 2018, American singer Billie Eilish said she also lives with Tourette syndrome after being diagnosed as a child. She told David Letterman that while most people wouldn't necessarily notice her tics, she can find it "exhausting."
