Ed Sheeran revealed that he struggled with an eating disorder and depression in a new profile for Rolling Stone, published on Tuesday, March 21. The popstar, 32, opened up about suffering from depression as a result of the deaths of close friends, finding out his wife Cherry Seaborn had a tumor, and other professional pressure in the new interview.
When speaking about his struggles with an eating disorder, Ed revealed that he would start “gorging” himself until “it would come up again.” He continued and said he was still working on addressing it. “I have a real eating problem,” he told Rolling Stone. “I’m a real binge eater. I’m a binge-everything. But I’m now more of a binge exerciser and a binge dad. And work, obviously.”
The “Perfect” singer admitted that he “always had real lows in my life,” but didn’t begin to address the issues until 2022. “No one really talks about their feelings where I come from,” he said. “People think it’s weird getting a therapist in England.… I think it’s very helpful to be able to speak with someone and just vent and not feel guilty about venting. Obviously, like, I’ve lived a very privileged life. So my friends would always look at me like, ‘Oh, it’s not that bad.’”
Ed spoke about how a recent bout of depression was brought on by the death of his close friend Jamal Edwards, a UK-based music entrepreneur, who died at 31 from cardiac arrhythmia as a result of cocaine use. The Substract singer admitted that while he’d struggled with depression in the past, this was especially difficult. “I felt like I didn’t want to live anymore,” he said. “And I have had that throughout my life.… You’re under the waves drowning. You’re just sort of in this thing. And you can’t get out of it.”
The singer later explained that “as a father,” he had felt “embarassed” about suffering from depression and said that he felt like the feelings were “selfish.”
Despite how difficult it can be to deal with depression, Ed admitted that he felt like therapy helped as did working on his music. He also revealed that he wore bracelets to pay tribute to Jamal and another honoring Michael Gudinski, who died in 2021, but he changed them out for ones that Cherry had given him with the names of his kids to remind him about how important his family is to him. “The help isn’t a button that is pressed, where you’re automatically OK,” he told the magazine. “It is something that will always be there and just has to be managed.”
Ed was speaking with the outlet ahead of the release of his new album Subtract, which will drop on May 5. In the interview, he also revealed that he collaborated a bit with indie rocker Aaron Dessner of The National, who also helped produce Taylor Swift’s folklore and evermore albums.