Musician Ed Sheeran has had a dramatic few months. In the course of the announcement of his new album "-", which will be released on May 5th, the British superstar revealed massive mental problems. His depression was triggered, among other things, by a tumor disease of his wife Cherry Seaborn. The 30-year-old received the devastating diagnosis during her second pregnancy last year, Sheeran explains in a statement from his record company Warner Music. His wife could only be treated after the birth. Sheeran and Seaborn have two daughters, two-year-old Lyra Antarctica and Jupiter, born in May 2022.

The drug death of his best friend Jamal Edwards at the age of 31 also made it difficult for him. He was like a brother to him. On top of that, Sheeran faced alleged copyright infringement in 2022 and had to defend himself in court. At the time he was fighting for his integrity and his career. Apparently, all of that was too much for him: "I was in a spiral of fear, depression and anxiety. I felt like I was drowning, head under water, looking up, but unable to break through to breathe to grab."

That's why his new album "-" (pronounced Subtract) will be the most personal album of his career so far, according to Warner Music. Sheeran will return to his singer-songwriter roots. You experience the singer as "vulnerable and truthful like never before," it says. "I worked on 'Subtract' for a decade trying to create the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear idea of ​​how it should be," he said.

But then everything changed: the strokes of fate described would have changed his life, his mental health and the way he looked at music. Writing new songs was his therapy: "In just over a week, I replaced the work of a whole decade with my deepest, darkest thoughts," Sheeran describes the work process on "-".

The new album opens "the trapdoor" to his soul: "For the first time I'm not trying to make an album that people like, I'm just putting out something that's honest and corresponds to where I'm at in my adult life. " As an artist, he was unable to produce an incredible work. Now it is a "diary entry from last February". With "-" Sheeran closes the so-called "Mathematical" era, which began in 2011 with his debut work " ".

Help with depression and suicidal thoughts is available from the telephone counseling service on the free number: 0800/111 0 111