Ed Sheeran is a huge Eminem fan, but his love for the rapper goes well beyond pure musical admiration.
The Subtract singer recently appeared on The Howard Stern Show and told a moving story about how rapping along to Eminem helped him cure his childhood stutter.
Howard told Ed that he didn't know the singer had had a birth mark removed from his face as a child, with the operation causing him to develop a stutter, and that that's why meeting Eminem had been so "emotional" for him.
Confirming the story, Ed said: "I was going through all sorts of speech therapy. When I was 9, my uncle bought me The Marshall Mathers LP. He just said to my dad, 'This guy's the next Bob Dylan.' My dad didn't really clock it, he's just like, 'OK, Edward's gonna go and listen to that.'
"And by learning that record, and by rapping it back to back to back to back, it cured my stutter. And I stopped... talking like that."
Ed went on to explain that he and Eminem (real name: Marshall Mathers) are repeat collaborators now.
"Years later, I've made songs with Eminem now, and we've got to know each other quite well, and he asked me to play 'Stan' with him at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," he said.
"I remember getting the call to do it ... and I was shooting 14 music videos back to back ... It was on my day off from shooting the music videos and I was like, I can't say no."
In the end, Ed didn't say no, and he concluded: "It was worth it."
Ed and Marshall have recorded several songs together over the years, including "Last Night" and "River."
And although he is primarily a pop artist, Ed also regularly raps on his own songs, like he did on "You Need Me, I Don't Need You" for example.
