{
  "id": 638223,
  "title": "A moment that changed me: My stammer made life a misery – then a song gave me back my voice",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/12/a-moment-that-changed-me-my-stammer-made-life-a-misery-then-a-song",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-08-12T05:45:20.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Health",
    "slug": "guardian-health",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/12/a-moment-that-changed-me-stammer-scatman-john"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "I was a teenager, ashamed of my speech disability. Even my family was unaware of my stammer. My goal was to remain undetected, never to be found out. I became a covert stammerer, avoiding certain sounds, words, and situations to appear fluent. I never used the phone, ordered easy-to-say meals in restaurants, skipped reading aloud in school, and endured relentless bullying due to being a shy, geeky redhead with braces. My life seemed bleak, with no prospects for a good job, relationship, or escape. Then, in the summer of 1995, a song on my dad's car radio changed everything.",
  "summary": "As a teenager, I was so ashamed of my speech disability that even my family didn’t know about it. When Scatman John came on the radio, celebrating his own stammer in a hit about self-esteem, I knew I had to meet him For most of my life, I had one goal: don’t get found out. I was a covert stammerer (or stutterer). Nobody realised I had a speech disability, because whenever I felt I was going to…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}