Stormzy Slams NME For ‘Using Me As A Posterboy For Depression’ Without Permission On New Cover

'The reason I'm so angry is because NME have been begging me to be on their cover. I have refused.'

Stormzy has received a response from NME, after criticising the magazine for putting him on the cover of this week’s issue without permission.

The free publication is distributed throughout the UK, and the cover in question comprises of a photograph of Stormzy, that was taken for a 2015 issue of Crack magazine, and the tagline ‘Depression: It’s Time To Talk’.

When the cover was shared online by the magazine, Stormzy soon expressed his displeasure and surprise at being featured, explaining that he has previously turned down offers from NME and did not give permission for the photo’s usage.

In a (rather lengthy) string of tweets, he wrote: 

NME’s editor Mike Williams then tweeted via the magazine’s official account: 

However, his replies were far from satisfactory for the grime star: 

 

Stormzy then replied to a fan who made an interesting suggestion:

Shortly after the tweets were exchanged, NME removed the cover from their Twitter avatar and banner.

Stormzy was praised for discussing depression on his debut album ‘Gang Signs & Prayer’, which topped the charts last month.

He later had a candid chat with Channel 4 News, explaining the lyrics and detailing his decision to talk about mental health on the album.

“It felt like on this album, if I didn’t address that, what I was going through… because even then I had another complex, where I thought ‘OK, I went through this – but I don’t even know if I want the world to know if I went through this,” he said. “Like ‘yeah, it’s something that I went through, my friends know I went through it, my family knows I went through it, but the world doesn’t need to know that.

“What convinced me to talk about it was the fact that if there’s anyone out there going through it, I think to see that I went through it would help.”