Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Jamie Roberts

Ed Sheeran's year from hell ahead of ACM Awards - best pal's death and wife's cancer scare

Ed Sheeran is one of the hottest properties in music, but his personal life has been left in tatters lately after a series of awful events.

The Brit artist, 32, continues to light up the musical charts and has had hit after hit with bangers such as Castle On The Hill, Perfect and Eyes Closed.

But away from his microphone and guitar, Ed has been facing turmoil. The dad of two often keeps his private life exactly that, but over the past year he has faced a huge amount of turmoil which he admits saw him "spiral through fear, depression and anxiety".

Ahead of his special appearance at this year's Academy of Country Music Awards in Texas, we take a look at the turbulent year the chart-topper has faced.

Wife's cancer scare

Ed Sheeran and Cherry Seaborn (Getty Images)

Ed tied the knot with childhood sweetheart Cherry Seaborn in 2019. The pair have since had two young children; Jupiter and Lyra Antarctica.

However, their world was almost turned upside down during her second pregnancy last year as she was diagnosed with a tumour.

In a bid to deal with the trauma, Ed took to writing music and claimed her penned seven tunes in four hours. "Writing songs is my therapy," he previously revealed.

"It helps me make sense of my feelings. I wrote without thought of what the songs would be, I just wrote whatever tumbled out. And in just over a week, I replaced a decade’s worth of work with my deepest darkest thoughts. "

The experience was made even more stressful by the fact Cherry couldn't be operated on until after the birth.

Best friend's death

Jamal Edwards and Ed Sheeran (Brenda Edwards/Instagram)
Ed was distraught after Jamal's death (jamaledwards/Instagram)

On February 20 last year, Ed - and the music world - was rocked by the death of Jamal Edwards. Ed's pal died of a heart attack at the age of 31, leaving the singer distraught.

The news came just weeks after Cherry's cancer diagnosis.

Music entrepreneur Jamal was the founder of music platform SBTV in 2006. Among with others, Ed's career was launched thanks to the music mogul.

The Shape Of You singer opened up about losing him in his latest series titled Ed Sheeran : The Sum Of It All.

He admitted that he "hadn't experienced grief and loss" until Jamal's death and confessed the news "took over his whole life".

"I basically lived in his bedroom. His mum thought we were having a relationship," Ed explained.

"Jamal died in the morning. I was at his mum's house at midday. It's Caribbean culture, you go to the family home for nine days and nine nights. On the ninth night, they throw a big party.

"Grief instantly ends your youth. The funeral was like 30 people but he knows like 10,000 people."

The documentary shows Ed break down in tears after discussing the tragedy.

Court case battle

Ed had to go to court over an alleged copyright infringement (JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Most recently, the singer-songwriter has had to face a potential multi-million-pound court case.

Thankfully for Ed, the jury filed in his favour, but it was a stressful situation which made him miss the funeral of his grandmother.

The case saw the heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend, who is credited as having written Marvin Gaye s song Let's Get It On, which was released in 1973, claim Ed's song Thinking Out Loud - released in 2014 - plagiarised the other tune's harmonic progressions as well as melodic and rhythmic elements.

Townsend's estate were seeking a share of the profits from Ed's award-winning song.

The case in a Manhattan court room lasted almost two weeks, but the verdict took the jury just under three hours to decide.

Following the verdict, Ed joked: "It looks like I’m not going to have to give up my day job after all."

However, referencing the fact he had to miss his beloved grandmother's funeral due to the court case, he declared: "I will never get that time back."

* Follow Mirror Celebs on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.