Ed Balls and Gareth Gates sat down for a candid and heartfelt interview today where they discussed their personal battles with speech impediments.
The former Labour shadow chancellor said he still sometimes struggles to get words out while he is hosting live television, but his Good Morning Britain co-presenter Susanna Reid knows to give him the time he needs.
Gates also described coping with a speech impediment and how he was inspired to try acting after learning that Mr Bean star Rowan Atkinson also has a stammer.
The Pop Idol winner was interviewed by Balls about his speech impediment during a previous appearance on GMB last year, which saw the former Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families welling up as he recalled his childhood battle.
'You inspired me. I thought, 'If Gareth Gates can do this, I can too. And if he can be public, I can be public too. It was really hard, but I did it because you showed me how to do it,'' Balls told him during the chat in November 2023.
TODAY: Gareth Gates appeared on Good Morning Britain, where he told Ed Balls and Susanna Reid about his battles with a stammer
2023: The Pop Idol winner was interviewed by Balls about his speech impediment during a previous appearance on GMB last year. Balls was seen becoming emotional during the encounter
2023: The pair embraced each other after discussing their experiences last year
Gates has often spoken about his struggles with his speech impediment and said today that he was surprised when he found out that Atkinson faced the same challenge.
He told GMB: 'I met the incredible Rowan Atkinson and he introduced himself and I could instantly see he had a really bad stammer.
'I was really amazed by this, he's a very well-known actor. We sat down and I chatted with him for hours, obviously, because we can't speak.
'He actually inspired me to act and, off the back of meeting him, I've done lots of West End shows, I've learned scripts and dialogue.
'I can now speak on stage, purely down to him, so we all inspire each other.'
Their 2023 discussion about stammers struck a chord with Balls, who began crying.
Susannah Reid told her co-host: 'Nothing to be ashamed of. It's to be proud of – it's part of your identity, isn't it! [Gareth] broke the ground for you, didn't he, Ed? There we go, Gareth, that's what you did.
Gates added: 'You're a role model for me now! For you to be doing this is really incredible.
'I've proved to people you can have an affliction and don't let it dictate who you are. You're able to achieve whatever you want in life. You just have to be strong.
'My speech is massively affected if I'm tired, stressed. Under pressure. That's the nature of the show [Celebrity SAS] - to push you to your limits. It was hard. I'm much more confident now. I got quite a lot out of the show'.
2023: The former Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families welled up as he recalled his childhood battle with the issue while interviewing Gates with co-host Susanna Reid
The singer, who was runner-up in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol in 2002, went on to say that he was 'pleased' to have a stammer when he was finding fame.
He said: 'It made me stand out from the crowd. I was actually pleased I had a stammer!
'It is a battle every day. You aren't able to be the person you want to be. You're held back by your affliction. It's made me a lot stronger person.'
Balls first revealed he had struggled with a stammer in an 2011 article with the Times, revealing he faced a daily battle to deliver his words and had to memorise all his speeches because he could not read a script.
In an attempt to overcome his stammer, he said he memorised 15 speeches a week and when he appears to have forgotten his lines, it is just that his voice has frozen.
He said at the time: 'You just have to be yourself whatever you do. It doesn't cause me a problem as Secretary of State, although there are times when it is tough.
'The worst thing you can do is try and stop it. That's when you trip up. It happens to me on live TV.
'Some people speak without notes because they think it looks better. Some people do it because they think it leads to a better speech. But I can't read the words out.'
Gates, who was runner-up in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol in 2002 (pictured left, with Will Young right), said he was 'pleased' to have a stammer when he was finding fame
At the time, the British Stammering Association announced that Balls had become a patron of the association. Its chief executive, Norbert Lieckfeldt, commended him for talking about his stammer in public.
He later admitted he didn't know he had one until he was 'already in the Cabinet' and found out he had issues speaking publicly in certain situations.
During an interview with the Independent in 2021, he said: 'When I was selected to be an MP in 2004, I spoke to my dad after BBC Any Questions? and he said, 'You've got the same as me but I don't know what it is'.
'I spent two or three years trying to find out what it was and trying to work out how to handle the fact that sometimes my speeches dried up in TV interviews and in the House of Commons.'
In 2016, Balls spoke frankly about his 'decade-long struggle' with a stammer and how then-Prime Minister David Cameron's taunts led him to go public with his affliction.
The former shadow chancellor said he was not actually diagnosed with the condition – which caused him to seize up during speeches and debates – until he was 41.
In his book, Speaking Out: Lessons in Life and Politics, he recalls how Cameron would lead the jeering from the Commons front bench – and nicknamed him 'Blinky Balls'.
The jibes eventually persuaded Ed to publicly reveal his problem – at first in a newspaper article, and then in a radio interview after which, he admits, the 'tears welled up'.
