{"id":430213,"date":"2026-02-17T10:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/430213\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T10:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:05:10","slug":"my-fans-helped-me-pay-mortgage-and-debts-says-sudbury-busker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/430213\/","title":{"rendered":"My fans helped me pay mortgage and debts, says Sudbury busker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A busker who found himself in financial dire straits paid off his debts and part of his mortgage after his fans gifted him thousands of pounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ben Smith, a singer-songwriter from Sudbury, Suffolk, performs originals and covers at gigs, events and in town centres.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After a difficult year, the 32-year-old found himself worryingly overdrawn and facing  hefty credit card debt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Smith told the BBC his life had turned around after his fans, including a very generous one from New Zealand, sent him more than \u00a33,000 as he livestreamed a gig on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A busker who found himself in financial dire straits paid off his debts and part of his mortgage&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-430213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}