Eminem helps Ed Sheeran overcome his stutter

Long before multi-platinum recording artist, Ed Sheeran, won us over with his smooth-sounding songs about love and heartbreak, he was bullied for having a debilitating stutter.

“I was quite a weird kid when I was little. I wore big glasses, had hearing problems, had a stutter and I had ginger hair,” Sheeran told Take 40.

But who’s to thank for helping him overcome it? None other than rapper Eminem – otherwise known as, The Real Slim Shady.

Sheeran’s dad bought him ‘The Marshal Mathers LP’ when the 24-year-old songwriter was just nine-years-old because his uncle had told his dad that “Eminem was the next Bob Dylan.”

“It’s pretty similar, it’s all just storytelling,” Sheeran told the crowd, although he admitted his dad bought it without knowing what was on it.

The LP, that sold more than 1.76 million copies in its debut week, included hits such as ‘Stan,’ ‘The Way I Am,’ and ‘The Real Slim Shady.’

“I learned every word, back and front, by the time I was 10,” he said. “He raps very fast and melodically and percussively, and it helped me get rid of my stutter.”

Sheeran, who was speaking at the American Institute for Stuttering’s Freeing Voices Changing Lives Benefit Gala, said he developed a stutter after undergoing a procedure to laser off a port-wine stain birthmark on his face, Global News reports.

Before leaving, Sheeran made sure to encourage the young people in the audience to embrace what some may view as a “quirk.”

“Just be yourself, because there’s no one in the world that can be a better you than you,” he said. “Embrace your quirks. Being weird is a wonderful thing.”

Sheeran also performed some of his hits at the event, including mega-hit ‘Thinking Out Loud.’ He also donated $20,000 to the institute.