Jonathan Walters has revealed he lost his brother and his wife suffered a miscarriage in the space of two days.
The former Ireland striker opened up about his family tragedies in an emotional interview on the Late Late Show on Friday night, admitting he struggles to speak about them.
Speaking about how he heard about the devastating events, Walters said: "We were on pre-season in Cork with Burnley, I got a call off my brother [with] just the bad news really.
"My brother passed away, I went back into Burnley the next day [for] training, and the same day, my wife lost a baby."
"I threw myself back into work. And then we found out my daughter has scoliosis as well."
"I'm ok with it but I struggle when I speak about it.
"It's tough. We organised my brother's funeral and you go through that. You go back into work and you're every day in work. I just compound it so you carry on."
Walters lost his Dublin-born mother Helen to bowel cancer when he was only 11 years old, and opened up about his close relationship with her during his childhood.
"Just like my little boy is to my wife, and my two girls are to me, I was my Mum's little boy. She was my world.
"You go to secondary school and you're sort of lost in a way; it becomes a taboo subject.
"I signed for Blackburn when I was 15 or 16 and I moved home.
"You go off on your own but really I was still a little boy, I was still lost, you don't know anything.
"I'm not the only one that goes through it, there's plenty of children that go through it the same."
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