Ed Sheeran Reveals Secret Substance Abuse Struggle

One thing we will always love Ed Sheeran for, apart from his incredible musical ability, is his willingness to be completely open with his fans. The 26-year-old singer-songwriter does this frequently, of course, through his emotionally honest lyrics; however, he's now opening up in a new way about his personal life. For the Saturday episode of the popular British talk show The Jonathan Ross Show, Sheeran revealed a secret substance struggle that he's kept to himself until now. 

Opening up about the dark side of the upper echelons on pop superstardom, Sheeran said that he thinks " you need to, when you get into the industry, adjust to it — and I didn’t adjust because I was constantly working on tour. And all the pitfalls that people read about, I just found myself slipping into all of them. Mostly, like, substance abuse.” 

Sheeran opened about one of the scariest aspects of his struggles, which is that it happened so gradually that it took him a while to realize his habits had become a problem. “I didn’t really notice it was happening. It just started gradually happening, and then some people took me to one side and were like, ‘Calm yourself down’" He went on to say that "It’s all fun to begin with, it all starts off as a party and then you’re doing it on your own and it’s not, so that was a wake-up call and taking a year off."

The two things that really helped Sheeran deal with this struggle were his passion for his career and his longtime girlfriend Cherry Seaborn. "I can’t work under the influence, I can’t write songs under the influence, I can’t perform under the influence — so the more I worked the less [that happened]." Sheeran said. "I’ve worked my whole life to get to where I am and you can’t lose that over something that you do in your spare time."

As for his relationship with Seaborn, Sheeran believers their love helped him get his feet back on the ground after years of touring and dealing with ever-growing fame. “We live together now, and I think that was a real help grounding me," he said of Seaborn. "I was a 25 year old in the music industry on tour so I just needed someone to balance me out.”

We're so thankful to have artists like Sheeran who are willing to talk about such important issues. It's definitely difficult to open up about these personal struggles, but it's so great that Sheeran is doing it and possibly inspiring scores of others to do the same. 


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