EXCLUSIVE: Lottie Tomlinson is expecting her second child, a baby girl with fiance Lewis Burton, and has opened up to OK! about her rollercoaster journey to happiness

Lottie Tomlinson, sister of former One Direction star Louis, is preparing to welcome her second child — a baby girl with fiancé Lewis Burton. In an exclusive chat with OK! Lottie opened up on how she found happiness at this new road in her life, amid her multiple family tragedies. While Lottie focuses on expanding her own brood, it is also a bittersweet moment as she’s navigating pregnancy without her own mum, Johannah Deakin, and younger sister, Félicité. In December 2016, Johannah passed away following a battle with cancer. Just two years later, Félicité died aged 18, after an accidental overdose.

As she reflected on these traumatic events, Lottie says she has worked very hard to reach a place of acceptance. “I feel like I’m at a comfortable stage with grief. I don’t think you ever get over it or are ‘not grieving’. When you suffer losses as big as mine and lose people who were that close in your life, you don’t get over that. You just work to get to a more comfortable stage with the feeling. I think accepting what’s happened has been a big thing for me. Sometimes, you don’t feel like you’re ever going to get to that point. But I have. Now, I can be happy and really channel that.”

Louis Tomlinson has 3 sisters – Phoebe, Lottie and Daisy (Image: Louis Tomlinson / Instagram)

Crediting therapy for helping her navigate grief, Lottie admits it wasn’t until she lost Félicité that she sought the help she needed.

“At the beginning, when I lost my mum, I’d never suffered grief or loss like that at all. To go into it with the loss of a parent was so intense and so heavy, you don’t think you’re going to get over it. You feel like your whole life is going to be defined by that — and you’ll never be happy again. I definitely remember having days where I couldn’t envisage a happy life ever again. Definitely not one as happy as I am now.”

The model was only 16 years old when her mum passed. Last year, Lottie has said that she recalls feeling like she was living in a “nightmare” after the tragic event.

Lewis and Lottie were first linked in 2020

Lottie was talking on episode two of the Grief Kind podcast run by the leading bereavement charity Sue Ryder . She said: “I think in the days and months after my mum passed, it was just so surreal. “And you felt like you were living in this nightmare, I suppose. And there were obviously young siblings involved where I was the oldest girl.”

She also told the podcast that she felt that she had to become a mother figure to her younger siblings. Lottie added: “So, I kind of felt that it was my role to step in and try and be the mother figure to them.”

Lottie also explained in the episode that she is a sentimental person, thanks to her mum. That is something that she is grateful for as she now has plenty of keepsakes.

Lottie is expecting her second child with fiance Lewis – and is finally in a happy place

She told the podcast: “I’ve always been quite sentimental. And I feel like that’s something my mom instilled in me as well. I’ve always saved things. And now I’m so grateful that I did that because I’ve got this box. And it’s got stuff in it that my mom wrote to me, and that stuff now obviously means so much more now that she’s not here.”

The youngster also shared that her best advice for someone who is grieving would be to “be kind to themselves.” Adding that allowing yourself to be happy is “really important.”