After Ed Sheeran’s copyright-infringement trial had him threatening to be “done” with music if he’s found liable, it’s now taking a toll on the disillusioned musician’s personal life.
The trial — in which Sheeran is accused of ripping off Marvin Gaye’s classic “Let’s Get It On” — forced the four-time Grammy winner to miss his beloved grandmother’s funeral in Ireland on Wednesday.
“I am very sad that our son Edward is unable to be here today,” Sheeran’s father, John, said in a eulogy for his 98-year-old mother, Anne Sheeran, also known as Nancy, née Mulligan.
“He’s so upset that he cannot be present — he has to be thousands of miles away in a court in America defending his integrity,” John said. “I know he is comforted by the fact that he was able to spend some precious time alone with his grandma just a month ago.”
Since the trial began last week in Manhattan federal court, Sheeran has been defending himself vigorously against accusations that his 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud” lifted from R&B legend Gaye.
The “Shape of You” songwriter, 32, was forced to say goodbye to his grandmother — who inspired his 2017 song “Nancy Mulligan” — by watching her funeral online, an ocean away from St. Patrick’s Church in County Wexford.
It’s the latest in a series of blows for Sheeran, who opens up about the “horrible month” last year that devastated him in his Disney+ docuseries “Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All,” which was released Wednesday.
He reveals that, while still reeling from wife Cherry Seaborn’s cancer diagnosis in February 2022, he was then shattered by the death of his best friend, British music entrepreneur Jamal Edwards, who helped launch his career.
“That was a horrible, horrible month,” says Sheeran. “Life hasn’t moved on for me yet, and I don’t actually think it will.”
While Seaborn, who was six months pregnant at the time of the diagnosis, was able to carry their baby to term before having her tumor removed and is now cancer-free, Sheeran has still struggled to deal with Edwards’ death.
“I’d never been to a burial,” says Sheeran, who also has a new album, “Subtract,” out Friday. “Like, I hadn’t really grown up until I felt grief. Loss — it just took over my life.”