“I didn’t want to live anymore”: singer Ed Sheeran talks about his battle with depression

Ed Sheeran says he “didn’t want to live anymore” after the deaths of his friends music entrepreneur and SBTV founder Jamal Edwards and cricketer Shane Warne in 2022.

Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine, the singer explained that he has dealt with depression “for his whole life” and felt the feelings resurface last year.

“You are under the waves and you are drowning. It’s like you’re inside this thing. And you can’t get out of that,” he said.

Being the father of two girls, he worried that his thoughts were “selfish”.

“Especially as a father, I’m very ashamed of it,” says the 32-year-old singer.

Sheeran admitted it was his wife Cherry Seaborn, which prompted him to seek help.

“Where I grew up, nobody really talks about their feelings,” she said. “People in England think going to a therapist is a weird thing… I think it’s very helpful to be able to talk to someone and just vent and not feel guilty about venting.”

“Obviously I’ve lived a very privileged life. So my friends would always look at me and think, ‘oh, you’re not so bad.’

“Help isn’t a button you push and you’ll automatically be fine,” he continued. “It’s something that’s always going to be there and you just have to manage it.”

Jamal Edwards, who gave Sheeran his first big break, died suddenly of a heart attack in February 2022 after taking cocaine and alcohol, a forensic analysis has concluded.

Sheeran said the tragedy convinced him to give up his drug addiction that he developed as a twenty-something year old.

“I remember being at a festival and I was like, ‘Well, if all my friends are doing it, it can’t be that bad,'” he says.

“But then it becomes a habit to do it once a week, then once a day, then twice a day, and then it happens like when there is no alcohol. It’s something that translates into bad vibes.”

“I would never, ever touch anything again, because that’s how Jamal died,” he added. “And that is disrespecting his memory, even approaching (drugs).”

cry on stage

Shortly after Edwards’ death, Sheeran’s wife was diagnosed with a tumor while pregnant that could not be removed until their second daughter, Jupiter, was born.

“You feel so powerless,” Sheeran recalled. – There is nothing you can do about it.

Seaborn finally revealed her pregnancy and had a successful operation in June 2022, the morning Sheeran performed at London’s Wembley Stadium, Rolling Stone reports.

The emotional toll of those events can be seen in Sherran’s upcoming Disney+ documentary, The sum of everything (The sum of everything).

In one scene, the star is seen crying on stage as she processes Edwards’ death and Seaborn’s medical condition, while also facing a long-running copyright lawsuit.

“I’ve never seen him cry on stage,” Seaborn notes in the documentary. He didn’t have time to process. and be at peace with your thoughts.

Sheeran previously revealed that his new album, Take awayit is completely written against the “underworld of pain and hope” that he experienced last year.

It was originally planned as a collection of acoustic songs recorded over 10 years.

But Sheeran abandoned the project and started over, writing new songs to “give meaning” to their feelings.

He recorded a record with Aaron Dessner from Nationalwho previously co-produced Taylor Swift’s albums during quarantine, Folklore and forever.

Dessner told Rolling Stone that he encouraged Sheeran to show a more “vulnerable” and “elemental” side of his music.

As he did with Swift, the musician began sending Sheeran instrumental tracks to turn into finished songs.

“I’d have these instrumentals and I’d write lyrics to them when I was driving in the car or on the plane or wherever,” Sheeran says.

“And so it is completed. And that was a record. It all happened very, very, very quickly.”

The star added who recorded a second album with Dessner, completely separate, which currently does not have an exact release date.

Sheeran also revealed the existence of a collaborative album with reggaeton star J Balvin, as well as upcoming music with Pharrell, Shakira, David Guetta and Justin Bieber.

Actually, he said rolling stones that he has five more albums in mind using mathematical symbols.

He explained that he plans to work on the last in that series for the rest of his life, “adding a song here and a song there. And it will only be in my will that they let me go after I die.”