Ed Sheeran
Edward Christopher Sheeran (born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently released the extended play No. 5 Collaborations Project and signed with Asylum Records the same year.
Sheeran’s debut album, + (“Plus”), was released in September 2011 and topped the UK Albums Chart. It contained his first hit single, “The A Team”. In 2012, Sheeran won the Brit Awards for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act. His second studio album, × (“Multiply”), topped charts worldwide upon its release in June 2014 and was named the second-best-selling album globally in 2015.
In the same year, × won Album of the Year at the 2015 Brit Awards, and Sheeran received the Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year. A single from ×, “Thinking Out Loud”, earned him the 2016 Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.
Sheeran’s third album, ÷ (“Divide”), was released in March 2017 and was the best-selling album worldwide of 2017. The first two singles from the album, “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill”, broke records in several countries by debuting in the top two positions on the charts.
He also became the first artist to have two songs debut in the US top 10 in the same week. By March 2017, Sheeran had accumulated ten top-10 singles from ÷ on the UK Singles Chart, breaking the record for most top-10 UK singles from one album. His fourth single from ÷, “Perfect”, reached number one in the US, Australia, and the UK, where it became the Christmas number one in 2017.
The world’s best-selling artist of 2017, he was named the Global Recording Artist of the Year. Released in 2019, his fourth overall and first collaborative album, No.6 Collaborations Project, debuted at number one in most major markets, and spawned three UK number one singles, “I Don’t Care”, “Beautiful People”, and “Take Me Back to London”.
His fifth studio album, = (“Equals”), topped the charts in most major markets in 2021. His sixth album, − (“Subtract”), was released on 5 May 2023, while his seventh album, Autumn Variations, was released on 29 September 2023 under his own record label, Gingerbread Man Records.
Early life and education
Edward Christopher Sheeran was born on 17 February 1991 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. His early childhood home was on Birchcliffe Road in nearby Hebden Bridge. His father, John, was a curator at Cartwright Hall in Bradford, and his mother, Imogen, worked at Manchester City Art Gallery.
In December 1995, he moved with his family from Hebden Bridge to Framlingham in Suffolk, where he attended the independent Brandeston Hall preparatory school and later Thomas Mills High School, also in Framlingham. He has an older brother named Matthew, who works as a composer.
Sheeran’s parents, John and Imogen, are from London. His father is Irish, and Sheeran has stated that his father is from a very large Catholic family. John is an art curator and lecturer, and Imogen is a culture publicist turned jewellery designer. His parents ran Sheeran Lock, an independent art consultancy, from 1990 to 2010. Sheeran’s grandfather was a Belfast Protestant who married a Catholic from the Republic of Ireland during a time of sectarian intolerance.
From a young age, Sheeran showed a strong inclination toward music. He sang at a local church choir at the age of four, learned how to play the guitar at age eleven, and began writing songs while at Thomas Mills High School in Framlingham. He also played the cello when he was younger. A 2004 school report described him as a “natural performer”, and his classmates also voted him “most likely to be famous”.
As a teenager, he was accepted into the National Youth Theatre in London. He successfully auditioned for Youth Music Theatre UK in 2007 and joined their production of Frankenstein – A New Musical in Plymouth. He later became a patron of Youth Music Theatre UK, now renamed British Youth Music Theatre, and of Access to Music, where he studied Artist Development. Sheeran is a second cousin of Northern Irish broadcaster Gordon Burns, who hosted the British game show The Krypton Factor.
Impact
Music journalist Alexis Petridis has stated that Ed Sheeran “brought pop back down to earth” with his music style, introducing himself “touting an even more austere version of Coldplay’s dressed-down authenticity: one unassuming man, his guitar and a loop pedal”.
Noting him as “one of the most influential” artists of his generation, as he spawned “endless imitators”, Petridis remarked that the music charts were “packed with Sheeran-alikes” after ×, describing it as “the wave of earnest, dressed-down, boy-next-door troubadours” that reached critical mass.
iHeartMedia senior executive Sharon Dastur declared that Sheeran’s success has allowed newer artists to be given an opportunity in the mainstream scene with quieter material at the forefront, instead of dance music. GQ’s George Chesterton deemed Sheeran “the de facto voice of a generation” as a consequence of his music reflecting his personality and “the defining characteristics of his audience”, with such recurring qualities of his discography corresponding “with those that his own generation, the millennials, most value: authenticity, realness, earnestness, sincerity”.
BBC Radio 1 executive George Ergatoudis has stated that his “lyrical candour” and his “professional hunger” resonated with younger listeners, giving him a “very clear edge” to breakthrough in a music industry that is “saturated with singer-songwriters”, while Sheeran’s “niche combination” has made him able to perform at hip-hop, grime and underground events and “convince the urban crowd that he was authentic”. According to Vox, Sheeran has reached “global pop culture ubiquity”.
In 2017, the BBC named him the second-best performing artist of the decade, after Adele, while in 2021, The Independent said he had “one of the biggest pop careers of this generation”. Billboard, The Financial Express, The Brandon Sun and Arab News have cited him as a “British music icon”.
In a 2023 poll conducted on what musical acts, past and present, music fans would most want to see live, Sheeran ranked third, after Queen and the Beatles. Sheeran and his work have influenced various recording artists, including Shawn Mendes, Louis Tomlinson, Camila Cabello and Cody Simpson.
Personal life
In early 2011, after securing recording and publishing deals, Sheeran purchased and renovated a farm near Framlingham, Suffolk, where he was raised. He said he hoped to raise a family there.
This estate, which he has added buildings to over the years, has been nicknamed “Sheeranville” in the press. In 2013, he lived between Hendersonville, Tennessee and Los Angeles, California. In 2014, he bought a house in South London.
Sheeran was in a relationship with Scottish singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt (who was in his music video for “Drunk”) in 2012, before breaking up. Nesbitt is the subject of Sheeran’s songs “Nina” and “Photograph”, while most of Nesbitt’s album Peroxide is about Sheeran.
In 2014, Sheeran was in a relationship with Athina Andrelos, who works for chef Jamie Oliver. She is the inspiration of Sheeran’s song “Thinking Out Loud”. They broke up in February 2015.
In July 2015, Sheeran began a relationship with childhood friend and former secondary school classmate Cherry Seaborn. They announced their engagement in January 2018 and were married a year later. She is the inspiration of the song “Perfect”. They have two daughters, born in 2020 and 2022.
He is close friends with singer-songwriter Taylor Swift; the pair collaborated on her albums Red and Reputation, as well as on a remix of the song “The Joker and the Queen” from Sheeran’s album =.
Sheeran is a supporter of his local football club Ipswich Town, and his +−=÷× Tour kit sponsored their 2021–22 season. Additionally, Sheeran was named in the club’s squad list and given the squad number of 17. His +−=÷× Tour kit sponsorship deal with Ipswich Town was renewed for the 2022–23 season. In August 2024, Sheeran acquired a minority stake in the club, amounting to 1.4%.
A collector of Panini’s FIFA World Cup sticker album, he completed the 2014 World Cup album. Appearing as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs on 7 May 2017, Sheeran chose His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman as his book of choice, and a lifetime supply of ketchup as the one inanimate luxury item that he would take with him on a desert island.
In June 2015, Forbes listed his earnings at $57 million for the previous 12 months, and ranked him the 27th-highest-earning celebrity in the world. In July 2018, Forbes named Sheeran ninth on their list of the highest-paid celebrities. One of the wealthiest musicians, according to The Sunday Times Rich List of 2019, Sheeran was worth £160 million as the 17th-richest musician in the UK. Sheeran’s net worth is estimated at £300 million in 2023.
On 24 October 2021, Sheeran tested positive for COVID-19 less than a week before the release of his fifth album.
Legal issues
Sheeran has faced accusations of plagiarism with regard to chord progression and other elements of his music. However, tort actions which have reached a jury have all been decided in Sheeran’s favour.
In 2017, Sheeran settled out of court over claims his song “Photograph” was a “note-for-note” copy of the chorus in the song “Amazing” by X Factor UK winner Matt Cardle. Sheeran later regretted the decision to settle, saying that it was done on the advice of his lawyers who thought the case was “more trouble than it was worth”.
He said he regretted settling the claim not because of the money involved, but because it changed his relationship with the song. He said: “I didn’t play ‘Photograph’ for ages after that. I just stopped playing it. I felt weird about it, it kind of made me feel dirty”. He also thought that settling the case opened a floodgate of claims, including the “Shape of You” lawsuit.
In 2018, legal action was brought against Sheeran, Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Atlantic Records by the estate and heirs of the late producer Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the song “Let’s Get It On” with Marvin Gaye. A US District Judge rejected Sheeran’s call in 2019 for dismissal of a legal case accusing him of copying parts of the song in “Thinking Out Loud”. The judge said that a jury should decide but that he found “substantial similarities between several of the two works’ musical elements”. A previous case by Townsend’s estate was dismissed without prejudice in February 2017.
The case went to trial in New York in April 2023. Sheeran’s lawyers argued that while the two songs have similar “building blocks” and a specific chord progression, such features are true for many pop songs, and the jury found in favour of Sheeran with a unanimous verdict.
After winning the trial, Sheeran said: “These chords are common building blocks which were used to create music long before ‘Let’s Get It On’ was written and will be used to create music long after we are all gone”. The legal battle continued for years, with appeals attempting to revive the case. However, in June 2025, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, effectively ending the dispute and upholding the previous rulings in Sheeran’s favour.
Sheeran was also taken to court in March 2022 for a copyright lawsuit over “Shape of You”. Musicians Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue alleged that the song infringed “particular lines and phrases” of their 2015 composition “Oh Why”. Sheeran won the case, with the judge ruling he “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a phrase from “Oh Why” when writing “Shape of You”.
Political views
Sheeran publicly opposed the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) and supported “remain”. Following the June 2016 referendum in which the British public voted to leave the EU, Sheeran was among a group of British musicians who signed a letter to then-Prime Minister Theresa May, calling for “a second vote”.
The letter stated that Brexit would “impact every aspect of the music industry. From touring to sales, to copyright legislation to royalty collation”, adding: “We dominate the market and our bands, singers, musicians, writers, producers and engineers work all over Europe and the world and in turn, Europe and the world come to us. Why? Because we are brilliant at it … [Our music] reaches out, all inclusive, and embraces anyone and everyone. And that truly is what Britain is”
n 2017, Sheeran publicly endorsed the Labour Party and then-leader Jeremy Corbyn during the 2017 United Kingdom general election, while adding that “I’m not Mr Political. I vote the way I feel I should, but won’t tell somebody else what to do”. In the 2024 general election, Sheeran endorsed the Labour Party and leader Keir Starmer.
In 2021, Sheeran, along with several other celebrities, urged the United States Congress to pass the proposed Equality Act, which would expand the Civil Rights Act in order to outlaw discrimination against LGBT people.
Sheeran stated in the open letter that the Act is “essential to protect the most marginalized communities”. In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sheeran expressed support for Ukraine and participated in the Concert for Ukraine held at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England.
Discography
Main article: Ed Sheeran discography
- + (2011)
- × (2014)
- ÷ (2017)
- No.6 Collaborations Project (2019)
- = (2021)
- − (2023)
- Autumn Variations (2023)
- Play (2025)
Filmography
Film and television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Shortland Street | Himself | [253] | |
| 2015 | Undateable | Himself | [254] | |
| Home and Away | Teddy | [255] | ||
| The Bastard Executioner | Sir Cormac | 5 episodes | [256] | |
| Jumpers for Goalposts: Live at Wembley Stadium | Himself | Concert film | [335] | |
| 2016 | Bridget Jones’s Baby | Himself | [336] | |
| Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping | Himself | Uncredited | [337] | |
| 2017 | Game of Thrones | Lannister soldier | Episode: “Dragonstone” | [338] |
| 2018 | The Simpsons | Brendan (voice) | Episode: “Haw-Haw Land” | [339] |
| Songwriter | Himself | Documentary | [340] | |
| 2019 | Yesterday | Himself | [341] | |
| Modern Love | Mick | Episode: “Hers was a World of One” | [342] | |
| Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker | Alien | Uncredited cameo | [343] | |
| 2021 | Red Notice | Himself | Cameo | [344] |
| 2023 | The Sum of It All | Himself | Docuseries | [345] |
| 2023 | Sumotherhood | Crack Ed | [346] | |
| 2025 | Stans | Himself | Documentary |
Commercials
| Year | Product(s) | Brand(s) | Role | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | “Edchup” | Heinz | Himself | [347] |
Tours
Headlining act
- + Tour (2011–13)
- × Tour (2014–15)
- ÷ Tour (2017–19)
- +–=÷× Tour (2022–25)
- − Tour (2023)
- Loop Tour (2026)
Opening act
- Snow Patrol’s Fallen Empires Tour (North American select dates) (2012)
- Taylor Swift’s The Red Tour (all North American dates) (2013)
- The Rolling Stones’ Zip Code Tour (Kansas City only)
See also
List of Official Subscription Plays Chart number-one songs of the 2010s
List of highest-grossing live music artists
List of YouTubers
2 Comments