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Ed Sheeran Born
Ed Sheeran was born on February 17, 1991, in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom. -
Early Years
When he was young, he began playing guitar, showing early promise as a musical talent. When he was 11, Sheeran met singer-songwriter Damien Rice backstage at one of Rice's shows, and the young musician found added inspiration. As the story goes, Rice told Sheeran to write his own music, and Sheeran set out the next day to do just that.. -
The Orange Room
It wasn't long before Sheeran was recording CDs and selling them, and he soon put together his first official EP, The Orange Room. With that accomplishment and his abiding ambition driving him, at only 14 years of age, Sheeran headed to London for the summer. Thinking he could find gigs in the big city, Sheeran left home with his guitar and a backpack full of clothes, and his musical career took flight. -
London
Once in London, Sheeran got busy recording and playing the local singer/songwriter circuit and quickly released two albums: a self-titled record in 2006. -
London
Ed Sheeran released Want Some? in 2007. -
London
He also began opening for more established acts, such as Nizlopi, the Noisettes and Jay Sean, and released another EP, You Need Me, in 2009, a year that found Sheeran playing more than 300 live shows. -
Ed Sheeran spent years 'homeless' before hitting the big time
"I didn't have anywhere to live for much of 2008 and the whole of 2009 and 2010, but somehow I made it work." "I knew where I could get a bed at a certain time of night and I knew who I could call at any time to get a floor to sleep on. Being sociable helped. Drinking helped." -
'Homeless' Sheeran
On one occasion, he spent a couple of nights sleeping outside Buckingham Palace, a location he returned to in 2012 to play at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. "There was an arch outside Buckingham Palace that has a heating duct and I spent a couple of nights there. That's where I wrote the song Homeless and the lines 'It's not a homeless night for me, I'm just home less than I'd like to be'..." -
'Homeless' Sheeran
Sheeran also slept on trains on the London Underground because it was warmer than the streets. "I'd go out and play a gig, wait until 5am when the Underground opened, sleep on the Circle Line until 12, go to a session- and then repeat." -
'Homeless' Sheeran
"I didn't have the best personal hygiene at that point because I didn't get a chance to shower. It was just:sleep on the train, session, sweat on stage, drink, sleep on the train. I had 23 dreads on one side of my head from not washing my hair. My girlfriend counted them when she took them out with a comb." -
London
It wasn't until 2010 that Sheeran made the leap to the next level in his career, and it came via online media, a route Sheeran had learned to use with great effectiveness. When a video he posted online got the attention of Example, a rapper, Sheeran was asked to go on the road with him as his opening act. This led to an even larger online fan base and inspiration for many more songs, which ended up filling three new EPs, all in 2010. -
The Next Level
When Sheeran headed to the U.S. that year, he found a new fan in Jamie Foxx, who asked Sheeran to appear on his Sirius radio show. Soon after, in January 2011, Sheeran released yet another EP, his last as an independent artist. Without any promotion, the record reached No.2 on the iTunes chart, and he signed on with Atlantic Records that same month -
The Next Level
With Atlantic, Sheeran released his major debut studio album, +. An instant hit, the album sold more than a million copies in the U.K. in the first six months alone. Sheeran began co-writing songs with bigger artists, such as One Direction and Taylor Swift, and supported Swift on her 2013 arena tour. -
The Next Level
On a roll, Sheeran's next success would come when his song "I See Fire" was featured in the movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and in June 2014, his next album, X, appeared, debuting at No.1 in the U.S. and U.K. -
The Next Level
The project featured three Top 10 singles-----"Don't", "Photograph" and "Thinking Out Loud"------with the latter winning the Grammy for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance in 2016. In 2016, Sheeran took a hiatus to work on his third studio album, "Divided" -
Love Life
Sheeran said he wanted to take time out and truly build a foundation with girlfriend Seaborn (who he first met in high school, but didn't start dating until years later). He went on to say, "So the catalyst for taking a year off was also the fact that my partner, she quit her job in New York. We were basically like, 'Let's both quit our jobs and let's have a year off forming a tight bond and a relationship.' So we went traveling and spent every day for a year together... -
Love Life
We're very, very strong. I've never been happier. I've never been more comfortable. I've never been more inspired. I sort of feel like everything's falling into place because I've given it time." -
Love Life
"This has been the first time I've ever actually had the time to fall in love properly. I've always got into relationships very passionate - I'm a redhead and also Irish. But then I will get in a relationship and go on tour for 18 moths and everything will mess up. And I'm like, 'Oh, what happened?' But it's because I had no time to put into someone." -
The Next Level
In January 2017, he released two singles from the album, "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill," which debuted at number one and number six, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100, Sheeran released "Divided" in March 2017, and announced a 2017 world tour. His new album broke a Spotify record for first-day album streams with 56.7 million listens in 24 hours.