{"id":589949,"date":"2026-09-04T12:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T12:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/589949\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T12:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T12:50:09","slug":"russell-howard-devastated-after-his-baby-son-died-shortly-after-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/589949\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell Howard ‘devastated’ after his baby son died shortly after birth"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story contains content which some readers might find distressing<\/p>\n

Comedian Russell Howard has revealed his baby son Felix died earlier this year, shortly after his wife Cerys had given birth.<\/p>\n

In a statement, he said he and his wife had faced “unimaginable heartache” and described it as “the most devastating time of our lives”.<\/p>\n

Howard praised the “extraordinary compassion, kindness and humanity” of the hospital staff who cared for them over the period that followed Felix’s death.<\/p>\n

He also announced the launch of a new foundation in their late son’s name to help families going through similar ordeals, with a comedy fundraiser set to take place next year.<\/p>\n

In a statement posted on his social media accounts<\/a> on Friday, Howard recalled: “During our time in hospital, Felix was placed in a cool cot, which meant that my wife and I were able to spend precious hours with our beautiful boy.<\/p>\n

“We could hold him, talk to him and tell him how much we loved him. Those hours are among the most precious memories we have of Felix.”<\/p>\n

Howard and his wife had not publicly announced at the time that they were expecting their second child.<\/p>\n

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story, help and support is available at BBC Action Line<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He explained he and his wife had been assigned a bereavement midwife named Lauren, who had experienced a similar tragedy and retrained in order to help other families.<\/p>\n

“Her care meant more to us than we could ever put into words,” Howard said.<\/p>\n

“We were overwhelmed by the care we received, and we made a promise to each other: that we would try to help other families who find themselves facing the same devastating circumstances.”<\/p>\n

As a result, Howard said he and Cerys were launching The Felix Foundation, which will aim to help families affected by miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth, neonatal death or related bereavement.<\/p>\n

A fundraising event, titled the Stand-Up Gala, will take place at London’s O2 Arena in February to raise money for the charity,<\/p>\n

Michael McIntyre, Jimmy Carr, Aisling Bea, John Bishop and Mo Gilligan are among the comics who will perform at the event.<\/p>\n

Howard said he would “never forget the generosity” of his fellow comics, who were giving their time to the show “completely free of charge”.<\/p>\n

The 46-year-old is one of the best known stand-up comics in the UK, having appeared on shows such as Mock The Week and Russell Howard’s Good News.<\/p>\n

The comedian and his wife Cerys, an NHS doctor, have been together since 2004 and share another son, who was born in August 2024.<\/p>\n

Howard recently played a string of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, and is currently on a stand-up tour of the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story contains content which some readers might find distressing Comedian Russell Howard has revealed his baby son…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,290478,156,37774,93793,111,139,69,290479,290480],"class_list":["post-589949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-cerys","tag-entertainment","tag-felix","tag-howard","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-russell-howard","tag-russell-howards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}