Anne-Marie – I’ve got anxiety, OCD and ADHD, says budding pop superstar and Ed Sheeran’s mate as she’s up for 4 Brits

SHE’S best friends with Ed Sheeran, a karate black belt and is up for an impressive four Brits next month.

But if pop’s hottest new star Anne-Marie wins an armful of trophies at the O2 Arena bash, her fans in the ­audience shouldn’t be ­surprised if she sweeps past them without a word.

For when she is not performing, the Ciao Adios singer ­suffers crippling anxiety attacks in company.

She says: “On stage, I am who people think I should be. Then you’re off stage and you meet someone — a fan — and think, ‘Oh God, they don’t know me like this.’

“When I’m walking into a venue and avoiding people, I’m not being a diva. I’m just terrified.”

Anne-Marie adds: “I suffer really badly with anxiety. It’s something that affects this career so much, because people expect you to be confident.

“You’ve chosen this career, which obviously means you’re very confident, because you have to go on stage in front of thousands of people and do all these interviews and meet fans.

“It’s very odd, because it’s so scary to me — every aspect of this career is scary to me.”

She adds: “I have a lot of things going on. I have anxiety, I have obsessive–compulsive disorder, I have attention- deficit disorder, I have dyslexia — I have a lot of things going on in my brain.”

“It got to the point where I couldn’t answer the phone or walk into a room by myself.”

‘I thought I would do music theatre for life’

Despite her problems, the 27-year-old singer has fast become one of the biggest names in pop.

She was the top-selling debut artist in 2018, her first album Speak Your Mind ­rocketed to No3 and she has had five platinum singles.

Last year she had three UK Top Ten singles — Friends, 2002 and Rewrite The Stars.

So who is the pop star whose glittering career is barely four years old?

She was born Anne-Marie Rose Nicholson in East Tilbury, Essex, second daughter to Sue, a primary school teacher, and Wayne, a builder.

She discovered the performing bug unprompted, and says: “My sister is four years older than me and she was going to a dance school every Saturday.

“And as soon as I could walk I went too, because I just wanted to be like my sister. No one in my family is a singer or dancer or anything.”

But the stage was not her only focus. At the age of nine Anne-Marie started taking Shotokan karate lessons, becoming a black belt and going on to win three world titles.

She says that writing music gives her the same emotional release she once got from karate but adds: “Only this way, it’s a bit less aggressive.”

Despite her martial arts skill she suffered at school, where she was cruelly nicknamed Goldfish for her short attention span, but she ­flourished on the stage.

The performing arts school that she attended had its own agency, which Anne-Marie joined. When she was six she won a part in the West End production of Les Misérables, then at 12 she appeared in Whistle Down The Wind, alongside fellow singer Jessie J.

She says: “I thought I would do musical theatre for the rest of my life. But when I got older and realised I would never be the best singer, that I didn’t have the range other people had, I just stopped.

“At 18 I was at home, getting normal jobs I couldn’t stick to or sitting around the house, p***ing my parents off.”

But then her showbusiness contacts led to an audition with Elton John’s management company Rocket Music — and Anne-Marie was on her way, recording a demo track, ­Summer Girl, in 2013.

Soon after, she came to the attention of dance act ­Rudimental, who invited her on tour, then in June 2015 her debut EP Karate was released.

In December 2016 she got her first taste of the big time, topping the charts for nine weeks as the vocalist on Clean Bandit’s single Rockabye.

‘Arg didn’t discover me. I already sang’

There were rumours that her talent had first been spotted by Towie’s James “Arg” Argent, after he judged her in a local ­singing contest.

But Anne- Marie says: “He didn’t discover me. I was already singing around and he was judging this particular ­talent contest in Essex. I didn’t win, so thanks Arg, but he liked me.”
The pair became close friends and Anne-Marie jokes that two of her album tracks are about “how in love with me he is”.

Her close friendship with Ed Sheeran began when she met him in London aged 17, and the pair later wrote Anne- Marie’s single 2002 together.

She says: “The first night I spent with him we literally spent watching Game Of Thrones and eating fajitas — so that’s wild.”

She adds: “We were friends from the second time we met. We just really, really loved each other and hung out all the time.

“I just remember him being so open with me and I was just like, ‘Wow, you’re so famous and you’re talking to me.’ He was very funny and we hit it off straight away.

“We hadn’t worked together for six, seven years and then we finally got in the studio and did 2002. And that kind of made our relationship even stronger, because it was like the next stage of a friendship.

‘I feel like I fall in love with people’s souls’

“And then obviously I went on tour with him and he’s so ­supportive. He’s an incredible friend and I love him.”

When Anne-Marie turned 27 last April, Ed presented her with a raunchy birthday present, a sex toy.

She recalls: “He got me the ­biggest one available. He said, ‘I’ve got a present for you, come in here!’ and I was like, ‘Don’t tell me it’s a . . . ?’ He was like, ‘No, no.’ And it was.”

While Anne-Marie has always been coy about her private life, she did once admit to dating someone in the music industry.

In 2016 she revealed she had a boyfriend of two years, saying: “I can’t say more because he is quite well known. He’s in music. I can’t tell you, I honestly can’t.” Anne-Marie may not be comfortable talking about her personal life, but in her music she is searingly honest.

In album track Perfect she revealed her bisexuality with the lyric: “I’ll love who I want to love, ’cause this love is gender-free.”

She says: “I feel like for me I’ve never really even thought about it.

“I’ve just been attracted to who I’ve been attracted to and I feel like I fall in love with people’s souls more than anything.”

Anne-Marie says she visits ­psychics a lot and claims she once saw a phantom in a former ­boyfriend’s house while in bed. She says: “I just saw this thing slowly sitting down on the couch so I screamed my head off and covered my face with the duvet.

“I was like, ‘Please, please, leave me alone’ for about an hour.” She still tries to practise her old karate skills but these days her singing career keeps her pretty busy.

She says: “I don’t have time to even sleep at the moment, so not much time to practise. But another thing is my teacher is in Essex, so it’s about whenever I can get back home as well.”

But she adds: “It’s good to know that if a man tries to punch me in the face, I can sort him out.”

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