In pop music, there are very few stars who’ve inspired the kind of loyalty from their fans that Ed Sheeran enjoys. For proof of that fact, all you have to do is look at one of the endless examples of videos on YouTube in which Sheeran performs in front of sold-out arenas that are full of people who adore his music. On top of that, it is pretty amazing that when Sheeran released a seconds-long snippet of a new single on Twitter, his millions of followers went crazy for it.
Of course, it would be pretty foolhardy to claim that there is a single reason why Ed Sheeran has such a strong connection to his fans. After all, the world is a lot more complicated than that and each of the singer’s followers has their own unique combination of reasons for enjoying his work so much. That said, there is no doubt that one of the most common reasons why people adore Sheeran is the often confessional nature of his lyrics. After all, even when people don’t know that Sheeran wrote certain songs, they still find themselves connecting to them.
Given the fact that the honesty of Ed Sheeran’s lyrics has played an oversized role in all the success that he has enjoyed, you would think that he would never want to betray his fan’s trust. However, if something one of Sheeran’s peers once claimed is true, Ed once knowingly deceived the world, including his fans.
The Original Tale
In 2016, the world learned that Ed Sheeran had a very noticeable cut on his face that would eventually become a scar. Given the size and location of Sheeran’s cut, people were instantly curious how he’d suffered the wound. Before too long, a pretty wild explanation would be leaked to the press.
According to the original reports, Ed Sheeran was accidentally cut in the face by a real-life princess. As the story goes, Ed Sheeran, James Blunt, and Princess Beatrice of York were spending time together when someone brought up a ridiculous idea, wouldn’t it be fun to perform a pretend knighting ceremony. According to the original version of events, that is when things went wrong as Princess Beatrice got a sword to knight James Blunt but the weapon wound up cutting Sheeran’s face instead.
When the reports of the failed knighting hit the press, it was easy to write them off as nothing more than gossip. After all, at that time those reports were based entirely on anonymous sourcing and an outrageous story like that seems to be just the kind of thing that someone would make up to fool the press. However, in early 2017, all of that seemed to change.
As anyone who has seen his show should know, Graham Norton is worth every penny he makes. After all, when celebrities go on The Graham Norton Show, they tend to talk about things they usually avoid. For example, when Graham Norton interviewed Ed Sheeran in 2017, he initially didn’t want to talk about his facial scar. However, before long Sheeran referred to the reports of a knighting gone wrong and made it seem like they were true.
"It was James Blunt trying to get his pop career back." "There wasn't a lot of people there that night...I have no idea how that story came out, because it was so tight. And for like two weeks afterwards, I had this huge gash on my face and people would be like, 'Oh, what happened?' And I'd be like, 'Aww, I fell.' And then suddenly it came out...Uh, allegedly."
The Real Story?
A couple of months after Ed Sheeran spoke about his facial scar on The Graham Norton Show, James Blunt talked to a shortlist.com reporter. Since Blunt was supposed to have been the one that Princess Beatrice was pretending to knight when Ed Sheeran accidentally was cut, it didn’t take long for that supposed incident to be brought up. Shockingly enough, however, Blunt completely denied the failed knighting story that Sheeran implied was true.
"Ed was drunk, messing around, and he cut himself. We made a fancy story up, people fell for it. It was very embarrassing." In response to that first statement, the shortlist.com reporter asked how much of the knighting story was fake and Blunt didn’t mince words. “All of it. Apart from the actual scar. It’s bizarre that people fell for it. I blame him. He must be desperate – he’s trying to sell records.” Finally, Blunt revealed that he was completely uninvolved in Sheeran’s cut aside from patching him up afterward.
Of course, it was abundantly clear that James Blunt’s line about Ed Sheeran trying to sell records was meant to be a joke. Aside from that, it seems clear that Blunt was serious about the knighting story being made up. While Ed Sheeran never expressly told his fans the fake knighting story, he certainly deceived his followers when he made it seem like the tale was true on The Graham Norton Show.