In 2012, Gary Barlow’s daughter was stillborn. In an interview, he revealed that he still cannot accept the loss.
In August 2012, Gary Barlow (53) and his wife Dawn Andrews (54)’s fourth child was stillborn. Just a few days later, the singer had to perform with his band Take That at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. In a rare interview about this stroke of fate, he revealed that he had still not made peace with the loss. In his songs, however, the girl called Poppy comes back to life for him at every concert.
“I haven’t really found peace with it yet”
Barlow allowed himself to say a few words about his way of coping with grief. He began his personal account with the following words: “I don’t talk about it in great detail, and I actually don’t do it at all because I’m still processing it a little bit. My wife’s feelings were completely different than mine. I was angry about it for a long time, I haven’t really found peace with it yet.”
After the death of his child, the singer feared that the stroke of fate could also mean the end of his long-term marriage. Fortunately, the exact opposite ended up being the case. “We had worrying statistics when it happened to us,” Barlow said. “About 95 percent of couples break up when something like this happens to them. I think it’s because men deal with it differently than women.” His wife, to whom he has been married for 24 years, has managed to process the story much better than he has. She is a much stronger character than he is.
“It has brought us even closer together”
To his great surprise, the tragic story he experienced together did not harm his relationship with Dawn in the end. “We are one of the happy couples because it has brought us even closer together,” said the singer. “And we have three other children, so that helped us. The youngest wasn’t affected by it at all, but the two older ones still talk about it a lot. It’s a highly complex thing that none of us should ever have to go through. I think it Made me stronger, I think.”
His music keeps his daughter Poppy alive for him
To this day, he finds comfort in his music when dealing with the loss. “For me, the way I get through most things in life is not by talking about it, but by writing music,” Barlow explained. “I have a lot of music that keeps her alive for me every night. When I see the audience singing along, to me that’s life, that’s what she brought with her, and it’s here in front of me, and it happens a few times a week on stage, and that’s the way I keep her close to me.”
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
