Ed Sheeran is sharing details of his life that he has never done before. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, the musician opened up about the highs and lows of his life, talking about the loss of his best friend, and his eating disorder.

Ed Sheeran describes his highly memed journey to popularity by saying, “I spent so long with people laughing about me making music.”

“Everyone saw me as a joke, and no one thought I could do it. And I think that’s still the drive. There’s still this need to prove myself. And I’m still kind of not taken seriously. If you were to speak to any sort of muso, ‘Oh, I love my left-of-center music,’ I’m the punchline to what bad pop music is,” he adds.

Despite the jokes and criticism directed at his varied style of music, which includes hits like “Thinking Out Loud,” and “Shape of You,” and rap collaborations with 50 Cent, Meek Mill, and Eminem, Sheeran claims he has chosen not to worry about what others think of his music or his style.

The singer also acknowledges that a string of bad luck and tragedies struck him in a short time, including the news that his wife Cherry Seaborn had a tumor, the passing of his close friend Jamal Edwards, and the strain of fighting a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Ed Sheeran’s Eating Disorder

Sheeran reveals he frequently compared himself to other male vocalists, which led him to feel like he was “so fat.”

“I’m self-conscious anyway, but you get into an industry where you’re getting compared to every other pop star,” he told the publication. “I was in the One Direction wave, and I’m like, ‘Well, why don’t I have a six-pack?’ And I was like, ‘Oh because you love kebabs and drink beer.’ Then you do songs with Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes. All these people have fantastic figures. And I was always like, ‘Well, why am I so … fat?’ ”

Sheeran admitted that he related with Elton John, who revealed in his memoir, Me, that he battled bulimia for six years, and outlined how the condition worsened and led to the development of an eating disorder.

“There’s certain things that, as a man talking about them, I feel mad uncomfortable. I know people are going to see it a type of way, but it’s good, to be honest about them. Because so many people do the same thing and hide it as well,” Sheeran says. “I have a real eating problem. 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 four-time Grammy winner claimed back in October that eating his favourite comfort foods is healthy for his mental health as long as he continues to exercise during an appearance on SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up.

Ed Sheeran’s New Album ‘Subtract’

Subtract, Sheeran’s highly anticipated new album, will be substantially different from his previous musical output, largely because of the five-year odyssey that went into its making.

Sheeran earlier said in a statement announcing the release of the album: “I had been working on Subtract for a decade, trying to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be. Then at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art.”

Subtract will be available through Atlantic Records on May 5.

Published by HOLR Magazine.