Ed Sheeran disappeared from the public eye for awhile, and now we know why.
In a new interview on The Jonathan Ross Show that is set to air this weekend, he discusses how his quick rise to fame affected his life in a dark way: “I think 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.”
Then he goes on to say: “I focused on work, and 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]. 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…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’… 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.”
Ed also credits his girlfriend Cherry for helping him get better: “We live together now, and I think that was a real help grounding me. I was a 25 year old in the music industry on tour so I just needed someone to balance me out.”
With notes from People.com, thanks!
