#which was known to the fandom early on but kept super quiet by respectful fans- during this time Z did some unprecedented actual interviews

[statementlou]

hello :) could you maybe explain a little bit how dan wootton blackmailed louis?

ugh sorry for taking a while to get to this. The problem is I feel like the only two ways to answer this are by spending a week and a half of full time labor sifting through old posts and evidence to get every detail right and lay out an airtight case, or to halfass something very serious, and so I felt a little stuck. So since I can't seem to find a good halfway point, apologies but here is the half assed version, if you want to get into it more I invite you to do your own deep dive or talk to other people, but here's how I remember things. Louis has almost never on video explicitly said things about Larry not being real and/or anything negative about fans and their theories (mostly the opposite), up until the last couple years when he obviously decided to make a major change he didn't talk about Freddie much at all let alone saying he was his kid, honestly not that much about Eleanor even; except for in two major interviews with Dan Wootton, each of which lined up with a serious traumatic Tomlinson family event that they managed to keep out of the tabloids until the very end (Jay's illness and Fizzy's struggles with substance abuse). After the fact of those events a lot of small things that didn't make sense at the time came together to look very much like Louis traded those interviews (and those answers) for having his family's private matters kept private. Story trading of this kind is a publicly known real thing that happens, and there were various clues that suggested he was being leaned on about those stories to lend legitimacy to the idea that it was something that happened in these cases. Given what we know about Dan Wootton and how he operates even before the recent flood of information and even more now, I think it's more than likely that he has been holding the threat of outing Louis (as he has done to many other public figures) over his head for over a decade, and has used his family's tragic struggles to get Louis to dance like a fucking puppet for him and I will REJOICE at his downfall when it comes whether it is now or 20 years from now... because someday it will, he has made too many enemies to stay above it forever

#I did start to try to deep dive before I realized it was too much #but I was reminded that when Louis was doing txf as a judge while fizzy was struggling #many people thought he had been pressured somehow into it; later when we knew what had been going on people were like #oh maybe he just wanted to be close to home to deal with fizzy stuff or somethng #but also: keeping fizzy stuff quiet would potentially be the info we didn't have at that time that could answer that q too of what they use #given the DW🤝simon jones🤝simon cowell cursed connections #(for the newbies: simon jones aka DWs bestie is Louis' publicist for no apparent reason even now long after he has gotten free of the rest #of the modest/syco/simon cowell shitshow) #anyway another example of story trading in our fandom is zayn's baby sister's teen pregnancy #which was known to the fandom early on but kept super quiet by respectful fans- during this time Z did some unprecedented actual interviews #for no obvious reason #and then iirc pretty much the day she turned 17 a very lowkey article reported on her marrying her bf and mentioning a pregnancy #but as if it was recent not like 7 months along #and even when she gave birth soon after it was all kind of... glossed over and around and not reported until a little later #blah blah blah #I felt like it was weird to talk about this for some reason but when I thought about it #I don't know if it matters. Like maybe talking about him not being a dad and being gay or whatever at all is bad #but assuming we're doing that anyway. why not talk about the struggles around that #and the creeps holding it over his head #dan wootton