On Monday, English pop singer, Ed Sheeran revealed in a podcast that he lost more than 50 pounds after being trolled online about his body image.
The British podcast “Behind the Medal,” went into discussion about the reasons Sheeran looked different, with the artist attributing his journey to the immense pressure from the public to look like everyone else.
“I never liked the way I looked,” the musician revealed. “Whenever I’ve been big, there’s always online trolls, or newspapers, or like, comments…it’s always like ‘chunky’ or ‘fat’ or whatever,” Sheeran added.
The 28-year-old musician isn’t the only one victimized by this type of behavior online.
Recently, Adele’s Instagram post sparked a national media debate on body image.
Earlier this week, Kristin Chenoweth even admitted that she looks to pop-sensation and close friend, Ariana Grande for advice when it comes to the general public getting to her.
“The first few years of my career, I was in the same sort of age as the One Direction boys and Justin Bieber, and all these people that were really in shape and had six packs, and I was kind of like, ‘Oh, should I be looking like this?” Sheeran explained.
But it was more than trolling Sheeran attributes to his weight loss. On tour, he became very unhealthy by eating too much and not exercising and tried to fix it with quick-solution diets that left him way too thin.
“That was the other extreme of it. I’ve been really big and was like, now I’m going to try to get as skinny as possible,” Sheeran said, adding that the image expectation for a celebrity is “weird.”
Related: Adele’s Recent Holiday Post Sparked a National Media Debate on Body Image
Sheeran’s confidence level was a bit shaken once the public started pointing things out, never really paying much attention to how he looked prior.
“I never once had any insecurities really about myself until people pointed them out,” he said. “Your brain kind of starts thinking about them.”
However, for the English singer and songwriter, there was some good that came from this, sharing that he believes he found balance in his life and even emphasized that he stopped smoking three years ago.
“It’s not a given that we were meant to have six packs, it’s not a normal thing to be that ripped. I exercise pretty much every day, but I eat and drink what I want,” Sheeran said.
He also announced that he will be taking a break from work and social media “until it’s time to come back.” He even changed his profile picture on his Instagram page to a black-and-white image of “BRB,” which stands for “be right back.”
