Ed Sheeran just got real about a dark time in his life in the midst of his success.
In a recent interview for the Hay House Chasing the Present Summit, the singer opened up about the “lowest” point in his life, recalling the struggles with his mental and physical health.
The 29-year-old singer revealed his “lowest” point had actually come during a high point in his career – sometime in 2015. He went on to say he‘s “had bouts of everything” – anxiety, panic attacks, and binge eating, and drinking.
“It was down to bad diet, drinking and then not seeing sunlight at all … and I wasn’t exercising,” he shared. “Exercise, I think, is a really f–king important thing to keep people happy. I was touring and I would stay up and drink all night and then … the buses would park underneath the arenas and I’d sleep on the bus all day and then wake up and then come out, do the show, drink, get back on the bus. I didn’t see sunlight for, like, maybe like four months.”
“It’s all fun and games at the start, it’s all rock ‘n’ roll and it’s fun, and then it starts getting just sad,” he continued. “So I think that’s probably the lowest that I’ve been and I kind of ballooned in weight and I just wasn’t healthy.”
Ed also described the things going on in his head at that point in his life: “I guess I kind of felt like, ‘What was the point? Why am I around? What is the point?'”
His panic attacks came to a point when he would suffer them in public places like “the tube, planes, supermarkets, anywhere where there’s lots of people.”
“It’s a weird paranoia in me that’s assuming that everyone’s gonna be horrible, when usually people are nice,” he explains.
He also got candid about how his “very, very addictive personality” contributed to the decline of his health.
“I’m reading Elton John’s book at the moment and there are so many things that he did that I do. He would be like, ‘I would just go on an ice cream binge and eat four f–king desserts until I threw up,’ and I was like, ‘I’ve done that before.’ Or his martini binges, where he sees how many he can drink. And I’m like, ‘I’ve done that before too,'” Ed recalled. “He ends up getting really f–king sad and depressed and all of these things can add to that.”
“I think with addiction it’s very hard to moderate, but moderation is the key, I think,” he continued. “I think things like sugar, sweet stuff, junk food, cocaine, alcohol, is all things that, it feels good the more you do, but it’s the worst thing for you, I think.”
“I’m covered in tattoos and I kind of don’t do things by halves,” the singer added. “So if I’m gonna drink, I kinda see no point in having a glass of wine, I’d rather have two bottles of wine. I think having a glass of wine is having something in moderation and probably isn’t going to affect your day the next day. But two bottles of wine probably might make you quite sad the next day.”
“They used to call me Two Dinner Teddy because I used to order two meals…and then you start putting on loads of weight and then you start hating the way you look and then you start getting sad about that.”
He also opened up about the effects of social media on his well-being.
“I was on my phone probably 19 hours of the day in 2015 and before that. Just constantly flicking, posting, flicking, posting, flicking, posting. And it wasn’t till the tour ended in 2015 where I was like, ‘I’m going to try to live without my phone for a bit,'” he said. “… It just felt like a massive weight had been lifted… Being off it has been really good.”
He shared that his longtime love and now-wife, Cherry Seaborn, had a huge hand in helping him get back on track.
“She exercises a lot, so I started going on runs with her. She eats quite healthily, so I started eating quite healthily with her. She doesn’t drink that much, so I wasn’t drinking,” he said. “That all changed things.”
In addition to the health benefits, Sheeran found self-esteem and mental health benefits to exercising regularly.
“There’s loads of health benefits anyway, but also just loads of cosmetic benefits, as in you just feel better, but also you start looking better,” he said. “When you look better, you’re looking in the mirror like, ‘Oh, maybe I don’t hate myself today.'”
