The singer said he is learning to live with the condition.
Lewis Capaldi has been diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome and has gone public with it because he does not want fans to think he has been “taking cocaine or something”.
The singer told The Sun that he is now learning to live with the twitches and was relieved to discover he had the condition as he feared he might be suffering a degenerative disease.
The 25-year-old is being treated with Botox injections to freeze muscles to try to control the tics characteristic of Tourette’s.
The ‘Someone You Loved’ singer said: “I have been diagnosed with Tourette’s.
“I wanted to speak about it because I didn’t want people to think I was taking cocaine or something. My shoulder twitches when I am excited, happy, nervous or stressed. It is something I am living with.”
The singer, whose new song ‘Forget Me’ is expected to race up the charts when released this Friday, reassured his fans that it isn’t “as bad it it looks”. He spoke to them in an Instagram Live session.
Capaldi said he is yet to learn “much about” his new condition, and is “learning new ways to cope all the time”.
“Some days it’s more painful than others, sometimes it’s quite uncomfortable but I guess that’s it,” he said. “When they told me, ‘We think you’ve got Tourette’s’, I was like, ‘Do you know what, that makes so much sense’.”
Capaldi said when he looks back at interviews from 2018, “I can see that I’m doing it.”
The performer said the condition does not trouble him all the time: “It comes and goes. Sometimes I can go months without doing it. I thought I had some horrible degenerative disease so I’ll take Tourette’s.”
Tourette’s syndrome is a condition affecting the brain and nervous system – a neurological condition – that is characterised by involuntary, random sounds and movements, known as tics.
It usually begins in childhood.
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