Ed Sheeran has admitted he developed an eating disorder after comparing himself to other male pop stars.
The A Team singer addressed that he has a 'real eating problem' while looking back on a time when this went to extremes.
He told Rolling Stone that he felt 'mad uncomfortable' discussing his struggles - which included 'gorging' on food before it 'came back up again' - but acknowledged that it was 'good to be honest about them'.
'I'm self-conscious anyway, but you get into an industry where you're getting compared to every other pop star,' he explained. '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?"'
Ed, 32, compared his struggles to those of Elton John, who wrote in his autobiography that he had developed bulimia.
After saying in 2020 that he had an 'addictive personality,' Ed alluded to this in his chat with Rolling Stone. '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 Sun reported in July 2020 how Ed had recognised a lot of similarities between him and Elton, which emerged from a chat he had with an American self-help book publisher.
Ed said, '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***ing desserts until I throw it up", and I was like, "I’ve done that before"'.
The award-winning musician - who shares daughters Lyra, two, and ten-month-old Jupiter with wife Cherry Seaborn - noted that addiction is 'hard to moderate' but 'moderation is the key'.
In another nod to his addictive personality, Ed confessed he was once glued to his phone for 19 hours a day.
'Social media is a weird one because it is my job to be on it and to keep up with the times and appeal to younger generations. I was on my phone probably 19 hours of the day in 2015 and before that.
'Just constantly, posting, flicking, posting, flicking, and it wasn’t till the tour ended in 2015 where I was like, "I’m just gonna try and live without my phone for a bit"'.