8 Celebs You Didn’t Know Had a Stutter Growing Up

Growing up, these celebrities had trouble simply sharing their thoughts out loud — and had to deal with the frustrations and insecurities that came with having a stutter. But these stars didn’t let that stop them. With hard work, they were able to find their voice and now use it as a source of motivation and strength.

Find out which stars dealt with a stutter…

When Nicole Kidman was a little girl, she had a stutter but it was something she was able to eventually overcome. Looking back, she says she remembers people trying to help her through it and constantly being reminded to slow down.

“I just remember everyone always saying to me, ‘Calm down, think about what you’re going to say.’ I remember when I was little, just being so excited to get it out, and I couldn’t,” she said during Newsweek’s Oscar Roundtable in 2011.

Emily Blunt was about six or seven when she started noticing that she had a stutter — something her grandfather, her uncle, and her cousin had all dealt with too. Looking back, she says it felt like having an “imposter living in your body” and didn’t really have a coping mechanism until the seventh-grade teacher noticed that her stuttering stopped when she was doing impersonations. The teacher encouraged her to audition for the school play, beginning her love of acting. Now, Emily works to help others who have stutters through the American Institute for Stuttering.

“I know it in every nuance and so to be able to help and to be able to offer up any advice or assistance or emboldenment that I can, it just is the greatest pleasure for me because it’s a very misunderstood, misrepresented disability, and…it’s one that is very often bullied and laughed at because people look funny and sound funny when they stutter,” she told People.

She continued, “They understand that how these kids relate to their stutter is usually the issue. You’ve got to fall in love with the fact that you’ve got a stutter to accept it. But it’s not all of you. Everyone’s got something — and this is just your thing.”

Growing up with a stutter is a big part of why Kendrick Lamar ended up becoming a musician. Reflecting on his childhood, he says he put all of his thoughts and feelings into his music when he couldn’t quite communicate how he felt out loud.

“As a kid, I used to stutter. I think that’s why I put my energy into making music. That’s how I get my thoughts out, instead of being crazy all the time,” he shared with The New York Times Magazine.

Ed Sheeran developed a stutter after a procedure that affected his nervous system as a child. Looking back, he says the thing he found most difficult was “knowing what to say but not really being able to express it in the right way.” For years, he tried a variety of speech therapies but it ended up being music that helped him the most. When his dad gave him a copy of Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP, he decided to commit every word to memory.

“I got heavily into music at a young age, and got very, very into rap music. Eminem was the first album that my dad bought me. He bought me the Marshall Mathers LP when I was nine years old, not knowing what was on it. And he let me listen to it, and I learned every word of it back to front by the age I was 10, and he raps very fast and very melodically, and very percussively, and it helped me get rid of the stutter. And then from there, I just carried on,” Ed shared while accepting an award from the American Institute for Stuttering.

Tiger Woods struggled with a stutter as a child — and has opened up in the hopes of helping others. In particular, he reached out to a teenage boy who was bullied and taunted because of his stutter and eventually attempted to take his own life. Tiger penned a note to the teen, telling him that he understood how he felt.

“I know what it’s like to be different and sometimes not fit in. I also stuttered as a child and I would talk to my dog and he would sit there and listen until he fell asleep,” he wrote in the letter, adding that he took classes to help him stop stuttering.

He continued, “I was younger than most of the kids I competed against, and often I was the only minority player on the field. But I didn’t let that stop me, and I think it even inspired me to work harder. I know you can do that too.”

Growing up, Bruce Willis dealt with a stutter and admits that he was bullied for the way he spoke. While accepting an award from the American Institute for Stuttering, he shared that he began stuttering at age six and with no help, he felt that he was “flailing wildly for a really long time.” Eventually, he realized that while he was acting in school productions, he could better control his speech impediment. He also later worked with speech therapists while attending Montclair State University.

“The hardest thing I remember was being a kid stuttering. My advice to the young people in this room is to never let anyone make you feel like an outcast, because you will never be an outcast,” Bruce said on stage.

He continued, addressing the parents in the room, “It’s easy to get frustrated with a child who stutters, but believe me, the one who stutters is much more frustrated. To the parents of stutterers…be patient, always listen. Offer encouragement, give positive reinforcement always.”

Samuel L. Jackson dealt with a stutter so bad as a child that he made the choice to simply stop speaking in school. He tried many things to help his speech impediment, including breathing exercises and reading about stuttering, but eventually discovered that curse words helped him break free of his stutter.

“I have no idea [why]… But it just does. It clicks a switch that stops the d-d-d-d, b-b-b-b,” he said on The Howard Stern Show. “I stuttered really, really, really bad for a long time…to the point that I stopped speaking for, like, almost a year in school.”

James Earl Jones was always a quiet kid growing up, choosing not to speak because he was dealing with a stutter. It wasn’t until a teacher at his high school realized that James didn’t stutter when he was reading his poetry that he was able to overcome the speech impediment.

“I had an English teacher in high school who discovered that when I read my own poetry, I didn’t stutter because I wasn’t in confrontation with other people’s feelings or thoughts,” he said on The Dick Cavett Show in 1972. “I practiced reading poetry for a while, and I think that’s what got me into the feeling for reading dramatic things.”