Rob Delaney reflects on his ‘anger’ over his son Henry’s death as he discusses his new book

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Rob Delaney has spoken of the “anger” he felt after the death of his son Henry when he talked about writing about his loss for his new book.

The actor’s son, Henry, tragically died aged just two and a half on Rob’s 41st birthday in January 2018 after a two-year battle with a brain tumour.

He explored his grief in his book A Heart That Works and has now said that in his writing he wanted to give an “unvarnished” view of grief and the “anger” that accompanies it.

Speaking with Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett at the Dish podcastRob admitted that he didn’t want to paint a “sunny” picture of grief, but instead wanted to show how “brutalizing” it can be.

The comedian, 46, explained: ‘Part of the book was I wanted to give an unvarnished view of grief and the anger that comes with it.

“I think it would have been much less nice to put out a book that said, ‘But one day the sun came up,’ you know, and all that stuff. Because then someone could read that and say, oh, I think it might be okay.

“And then something like this happens to them and you just get mistreated, you know, something said to me, make it hard, make it hard.”

Rob went on to explain how A Heart That Works, which was released in late 2022, follows his family and how they began to care for Henry when he became unwell.

He continued, “It’s about, you know, that whole experience with my family where he got sick and we took care of him for a few years and then he died.

So to specifically answer your question about reading through it, it felt good to do that because even when you write a book, it’s rare to go all the way through from A to Z.

“And that was one of the times I did that, essentially in one sitting. I think I actually took an hour and a half nap in the middle of it and just laid on the floor in the dark cubicle, I really did, and then, so yeah, it took a day to do.

And I felt good doing that because then I thought, okay, this book is going to destroy people, but it also makes sense, there’s a through line. So honestly, when I read it out loud, I thought, It doesn’t stink.

“Also, I was even like, because parts of it that I wrote months earlier, I was like, ‘Whoa, my God, I’m going to put this out in the world? I mean, this is going to prank people’.”

In addition to their late child Henry, Rob and his wife Leah also share three sons, the youngest of whom was born in August 2018 – just months after Henry’s death.

Rob learned that his son Henry may have had a brain tumor just one day after he and Sharon Horgan won a BAFTA in April 2016 for writing comedies about Catastrophe.

Although at the height of his success, he previously described the months that followed as “obscured by fog” amid his son’s failing health.

Catastrophe ran for four seasons from 2015 to 2019 and Rob both wrote and starred in the sitcom amid his son’s devastating battle with cancer.

Speaking of the hit show on the podcast, Rob said he “hopes” they don’t bring it back and that he thinks too many shows are being rebooted for a “cash grab.”

He said, “I hope we don’t just because people are rebooting everything now. Like let it be.

“We stopped doing it because we had done four series that we were proud of and we could smell that we were threatening to repeat ourselves, and frankly we said a lot about marriage and parenting there, maybe Sharon might have some ideas. Not me at all.

“I would have loved to scrape the barrel and was like, that’s all I know. And so, if we were to do another one, I think it might be bad, or worse, money making. I’d rather die of hunger.

“I don’t want my kids to starve, but I would basically say, look, I starved because it was cooler than trotting around [rubbish].’

He added, “And then the ones who are rebooting, like so many who are rebooting, you’re like, I was fine with that not being around anymore and then it comes back and you’re like, um, so God help us if we ever did.’

It is not the first time Rob has spoken about his son’s battle with cancer, as he described earlier when he discovered that Henry had a brain tumor as ‘hardest pain in the world’.

An extract from his book published in the Sunday Times provided poignant stories about the difficult period for him and his wife Leah after Henry’s tragic death.

“Grief drove a bus through the part of my brain where memories are stored,” he said. “After the MRI, Dr. Anson confirmed that Henry had a large tumor in the back of his head, near his brain stem.

“He delivered the news calmly and ended by announcing that a pediatric brain surgeon would be arriving in a few hours. We sank into ourselves.

He went on to explain how they were introduced to a brain surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, who would attempt to surgically remove the tumor two weeks after Henry turned one.

When they arrived at the hospital days before surgery, Rob and Leah shared a shower room with Henry, who Rob said had a tired appearance that “you would normally associate with an old man.”

After two months in the intensive care unit, Henry was transferred to the cancer ward where he received several months of chemotherapy.

And while this was going on, the couple made an “active decision” to protect their marriage by going on a date once a week, even while Henry was in intensive care.

Rob shared his heartbreak upon learning that Henry’s cancer had started to return, saying that his “belly was full of stones” as he and Leah understood there was no treatment left.

Henry was then given only three to six months to live and tragically passed away in January 2018.