Comedy star Rob Delaney has revealed he would like to buy the former London home where his two-year-old son Henry died from brain cancer.
Delaney said he would like to spend his own last moments in the living room were he said goodbye to his child in 2018.
The room has additional significance for the star because his fourth son was born there later that year.
Delaney, whose credits include Catastrophe and Deadpool 2, told Desert Island Discs: ‘We don’t live there any more but when we moved out I asked the landlord, ‘Listen, if you are ever going to sell this place will you let me know first because I would like to buy it’, so when I’m 81 I can crawl in here and die, in the same room that my son died in, that my other son was born in.’
In a candid and at times emotional interview, American-born Delaney, 47, told host Lauren Laverne about Henry’s last months.
Comedy star Rob Delaney has revealed he would like to buy the former London home where his two-year-old son Henry died from brain cancer in 2018
Delaney previously shared on Instagram a photograph of his late son Henry sleeping, taken when he was only 15 months old and had just started chemotherapy
Devastating: In a heartbreaking caption, the Catastrophe star explained how cancer surgery had damaged cranial nerves and left their son unable to swallow – Henry died in 2018
He said: ‘He did have a good death. His final months – we had four-and-a-half of them where we knew he was going to die – his brothers were just so into him.
‘They all loved each other so much… I watched a four and a six-year-old hold their brother’s dead body, I watched them take unbelievable care of him and learn difficult things because he required really intense things to take care of him.
‘I just hate thinking about them not having him. I really hate it.
‘They talk about him all the time and they love him, and they smile when they talk about him and they love to look at pictures of him and he is very much part of our lives.’
Delaney also revealed he still spoke to his ‘funny and clever’ son.
He said: ‘I don’t know what words to use, don’t care. I talk to him. I don’t know if he hears me. It doesn’t matter… He is my son, I am his dad and I love him.’
Delaney said he and his wife Leah had been unable to leave London ‘for so many reasons… one of which is I like to go put my hands on the slide at the playground that Henry slid down.
‘I like to see [the] nurses, periodically bump into them, that took care of him. So London is very important to me and London took very good care of him.’
Desert Island Discs airs on BBC Radio 4 at 10am today and is also available on BBC Sounds
Delaney revealed his other sons still speak about their ‘funny and clever’ late brother
Delaney said he and his wife Leah had been unable to leave London ‘for so many reasons… one of which is I like to go put my hands on the slide at the playground that Henry slid down’
Delaney said ‘London is very important to me and London took very good care of him’, referencing the nurses who looked after Henry in his last months
Happy news: In December 2018 Rob revealed his wife Leah had given birth to their ‘magical’ fourth son that August, seven months after Henry passed away