HOLLYWOOD—It’s not easy being a singer-songwriter these days. Besides very stressful, it can be somewhat challenging. Ed Sheeran, said he had to deal with depression, “throughout his life” and felt the feelings resurface last year.  According to published reports, he said, “You’re under the waves drowning. You’re just sort of in this thing. And you can’t get out of it.”

He worried his thoughts were “selfish,” given that he is a parent to two girls. “Especially as a father, I feel really embarrassed about it,” the 32-year-old said. Sheeran credited his wife, Cherry Seaborn, with encouraging him to seek help. In England, “people think it’s weird getting a therapist,” he said. Sheeran, didn’t want to live any more, after the deaths of his friends SBTV founder Jamal Edwards and cricketer Shane Warne in 2022. Edwards, who gave Sheeran his first big break, died suddenly from a heart attack in February 2022 after taking cocaine and drinking alcohol, a coroner concluded.

Sheeran said the tragedy convinced him to kick a drug habit he had developed in his 20s.  Shortly after Edward’s death, Sheeran’s wife was diagnosed with a tumor which could not be operated on until after she had given birth to their second daughter, Jupiter. “You feel so powerless,” Sheeran recalled. “There’s nothing you can do about it.” Seaborn ultimately carried the baby to term and had successful surgery in June 2022, the morning that Sheeran headlined Wembley Stadium, according to published reports.

The emotional toll of those events can be seen in a trailer for Sheeran’s forthcoming Disney + documentary, “The Sum Of It All.” In one scene, the star is pictured crying on stage, as he grapples with Edward’s death and Seaborn’s health condition, while simultaneously facing a length copyright trial. Sheeran previously revealed that his new album, “Subtract,” was completely re-written against the “backdrop of grief and hope” he experienced last year.

It was intended to be a collection of acoustic songs recorded over a 10-year period, he scrapped the project and started again, using songwriting to “make sense” of his feelings. He made the record with the National’s Aaron Dessner, who previously co-produced Taylor Swift’s lockdown albums “Folklore” and “Evermore.” As he had done with Swift, the musician starting sending Sheeran instrumental tracks to craft into finished songs.

He also added that he recorded a second, entirely separate, album with Dessner which has no firm release date at present. He revealed the existence of a collaborative album with reggaeton star J Balvin, as well as forthcoming music with Pharrell, Shakira, David Guetta and Justin Bieber. He also has five more albums in mind using another category of symbols. He plans to work on the last one in that series on and off for the rest of his life, “adding songs here and there. And just have it in my will that after I die, it comes out.”

Not the first time or the last when a pop superstar gets sued. Bad Bunny is being sued for a whopping $40 million by his ex-girlfriend, who says he used a recording of her in two songs without permission. Carliz De La Cruz Hernandez says he recorded the catchphrase “Bad Bunny Baby” on her phone in 2015, before he became famous and before they split up. The line gas appeared on the Puerto Rican singer and rapper’s 2017 single “Pa Ti” and the 2022 song “Dos Mil16.”

Bad Bunny was the most streamed artist on Spotify for the past three years. He has not publicly responded to his ex’s legal action, which was filed in Puerto Rico earlier this month. They got together in 2011 and both worked in a supermarket as Bad Bunny-real name Benito Martinez Ocasio. Ms. De La Cruz is also suing Bad Bunny’s record label Rimas Entertainment and manager Noah Assad.

She also claims her recordings have been used in concerts and argues that its use amounts to “gross negligence and bad faith and an attack on her privacy, morals and dignity.”

Rose’s scoop: You are never too old to get married. Rupert Murdoch, 92, will marry his fifth wife Ann Lesley Smith, 66. They are engaged to be married this summer.