Stormzy is currently riding the wave of his popularity like no other after his debut album has been receiving rave reviews and he totally nailed his performance at the Brit Awards. But even despite this success, he wants to make sure that his fans know that it wasn’t always like this for him.

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Speaking to Channel 4 journalist Jasmine Dotiwala, the grime MC chose to reveal that he recently suffered from depression and how he wanted to share this with the world to try and encourage people to talk about their own mental health issues. He reasons that a lot of the people he grew up respecting and idolising never talked about any problems, so ‘regular’ people would assume that they simply don’t exist for celebrities/other people. And as such, they wouldn’t risk talking about them for fear of being mocked.

Stormzy now feels the responsibility to speak up so that others don’t feel so bad about verbalising their issues either and that’s what this interview is all about. Here it is in full:

What an absolute hero. Although more and more celebrities are starting to join the conversation about mental health issues, it’s great to see that someone who’s relatively new to the scene is willing and able to talk about his feelings in the mainstream media. Always knew Stormzy was a good guy.

For more Stormzy, check out his rumoured upcoming collaboration with Louis Theroux. Awesome.