The Rock sheds a tear as Rob Delaney talks about the tragic loss of his son in 2018 / Dwayne Johnson

Indeed. I mean, Rob, that's a pretty nice idea, that, I thought. That was marvellous. I heard about, like, you know, use an app, people come into my home, do things I thought might not be for me, but that's beautiful with those children on it. I love it. I know, it's sweet. Now, Rob, we do want to talk about your new book, A Heart That Works. So, it's a memoir, but it's not just your story that you're telling. It's also the story of your son, Henry, who passed away in 2018. Tell us a bit about him. How would you describe him, when you think back? Describe my Henry? Well, he was a very sweet, mischievous, funny boy. He was the third. We had three boys in a row, you know, two years in between them, sometimes not quite. And he sensed right away that he would have to be very magnetic and adorable and attractive, because our house was a zoo, you know? And so, he was very lovely, and we just were all gravitated towards him, and he was magnificent. And then he had surgery once they found the brain tumor, and that disabled him quite seriously, physically. But the tumor was near his brainstem, so his frontal lobe wasn't affected. So, he was still very funny and mischievous and fun. So, he was just a real pleasure to spend time with. He was diagnosed when he was very little. He was one when he was diagnosed with cancer, right? Yeah. Symptoms showed up just before he turned one, and then he was diagnosed just after he turned one, and then he died a little bit before he would have turned three. Yes. And so, you know, this book that you've written, you've told your story, gone through that experience with him, and then the kind of way of losing him, but also his memory. I mean, you know, people talk about the idea of keeping a memory of someone alive, and sharing his story, does it feel like you're doing that? Oh, certainly. What's funny is I started the book thinking I want to write something very angry that will hurt people, and will parcel out some of the pain my family feels. So, I really was starting like, here comes this book for you scumbags who don't know what my family's been through. But the fact is, is our love for him, and what a wonderful boy he was, just took over. And so, something happened, and the book is just really about love, despite my best efforts to make it an angry tome. It's actually a lot of love. And that taps into the title, you know, it's from that wonderful Juliana Hatfield song, a heart that hurts is a heart that works. Yeah. That's been alive, right? Yeah, so that's a manifesto of mine now, a heart that hurts is a heart that works. Because if you're born on planet Earth, you're going to experience pain, there's no way around it. And, you know, our family got more of it than we might have anticipated earlier on. And it's been terrible and painful. You know, but there's been a lot of love weaved into it, too. You talk about, you know, how best to support someone who's lost a loved one. I mean, what would you say is the biggest thing that you've been able to learn? Well, I now know that if someone loses somebody close to them, I'm not going to be like, is there anything I can do? I'm just going to go over to their house, duplicate one of their keys when they're napping, and then come in and do their laundry, you know, force them to go out and take a walk while I watch one of their kids or whatever. It's really way more about actions than words. That's right. And I mean, I know that having supportive friends meant a lot to you during that time. And actually, Duane reached out to you, I think, because you guys have worked together. Well, we hadn't at this point. But yeah, he sent me a lovely tweet after Henry died, which he didn't have to do, you know, and that was very sweet and made me feel great. And then a couple years later, yeah, I did Hobbs and Shaw. Okay, so that was the time. But it's hard, isn't it? Because, you know, Duane, to do that, people don't often know what to say. And actually, they can be kind of intimidated into not saying something that the moment passes because it's so difficult to put something into words. I, you know, we have babies at home. I have all girls 21 and six and four. And the, you know, that story hearing that, you know, rocked us in our household. So, man, well, Duane did a good template, you know, for he said Henry's name, I remember that. And just said something sweet. And he just did it, you know, rather than should I, you know, feel nice. That's the thing. Don't worry about getting it right. Just just try and get it. It's so inspiring as well. Because obviously, you know, during in the book, you talk about while Henry was ill, you're also working on on the sitcom catastrophe. I mean, how could you go from such a tragedy to be able to even writing? So I mean, what I found was that grief and work are compatible. I agreed to do a fourth series of catastrophe. When we learned that Henry's cancer had returned and that he would die. I wasn't even sure I was going to do one. But I knew we would need to still be able to pay rent and buy cereal and shoes. So I was like, yeah, I'll do it at some point. And then when I started writing the fourth series, I didn't even care if it was good. I just wanted money. And then I started writing it. And I really began to enjoy myself very quickly. And I found that work and grief are compatible. So if I had to stop and go cry or puke, I did. But then I'd come back and we'd start writing. And after a while, start laughing, you know, so it didn't I don't not laugh anymore. I don't not have fun anymore. There's a new thing that my family feels that we did not have before. And it's hard and it hurts. But we still laugh. We still get angry. We still get silly. We still have all the other emotions. Yeah, incredible. Thank you so much, Rob, for sharing that. And a heart that works is out this Thursday and 100% of the profits from the book will be donated to children's hospices. I mean, that's so amazing, isn't it? It's pretty amazing, isn't it? But then this guy's pretty amazing. Rob's also going to be visiting Edinburgh, Manchester and London for his book tour and tickets for that are available now. Yeah, we've actually had so many lovely comments as well from Dorothy saying Rob's story of his son is the most powerful, courageous and heart-rending story of grief, but so full of love. And it's absolutely beautiful. Let me say quickly, it's not courageous. It's just what other bereaved parents did for me and my wife. So I was like, look, if I can write a book that will reach somebody in a suburb of Yorkshire who can't get to a London bereaved parents meeting, then I got to do it. So it's just here you go. Use it. I hope it helps. You've done it. Thank you so much. That is all we've got time for tonight. Thanks so much to Duane, Noah and Rob. See you soon. Thanks, guys.