Tuesday, June 9, 2015 10:00pm ET by  
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Ed Sheeran reveals how he overcame his stutter

British hitmaker Ed Sheeran has revealed that he had a stutter as a child and used music to overcome it. 

Speaking to press at the American Institute for Stuttering's Freeing Voices Live Benefit Gala on Monday night (June 8), the superstar explained that he would rap along to Eminem's songs and it helped immensely:

"I was a very, very weird child. I had a port-wine stain birthmark on my face that I got lasered off when I was very young; one day, they forgot to put the anaesthetic on, and ever since then, I had a stutter. I also had very big, blue NHS glasses — NHS is the National Health Service, one day I hope you'll have the same! And I lacked an eardrum on one side of my ear, so stuttering was actually the least of my problems!"

The 'Thinking Out Loud' sensation continued: "But it was still quite a difficult thing. The thing I found most difficult was knowing what to say but not really being able to express it the right way. My Uncle Jim told my dad that Eminem was the next Bob Dylan — it's pretty similar, it's all just storytelling — so my dad bought me 'The Marshall Mathers LP' when I was nine years old, not knowing what was on it."

"I learned every word of it, back to front, by the time I was ten. He raps very fast and melodically and percussively, and it helped me get rid of the stutter. Stuttering is not a thing you have to be worried about at all."

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Watch footage of Sheeran performing 'Trap Queen' here: