This morning, MBE Ed Sheeran took to Instagram to share the news that his baby daughter was born last week. He and his wife, Cherry Seaborn, are ‘on cloud nine’ and have urged that the public ‘respect [their] privacy at this time.’
It is no secret that Sheeran thinks His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman is one of the ‘best books [he’s] ever read’. As a result fans are taking to Twitter to share theories that his daughter, Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran, is named after the novel’s feisty protagonist.
Sheeran and Seaborn, who got married last year, first met when they attended Thomas Mill High School together in Framlingham, Suffolk. Sheeran had a crush on the highly intelligent hockey player Cherry, but the romance was cut short when she left to attend Duke University in America.
They reconnected later during the phase of life when Sheeran was shying away from the public eye. In 2015 he was struggling to come to terms with his new celebrity status, choosing to take a year off music during which he ‘watched movies…order[ed] takeaways and put on a lot of weight’. Not the lifestyle you’d imagine for a bright young singer-songwriter.
Eventually he decided to do some travelling, and during this time rekindled his romance with childhood crush Cherry Seaborn. From there their love story went from strength to strength, largely out of the public eye. ‘I never really do anything too public anyway‘ he stated in an interview with Access when asked how he managed to ‘sneak’ in the marriage without his fans knowing.
Despite this secrecy, the couple appeared together in the music video for Sheeran’s collaboration with Ella Mai: Put It All On Me. The music video is a testament to Ed’s romantic sensibility, as it features a series of real-life couples dancing, with captions about their love stories at the bottom of the frame.
Alongside ‘Jeannie and Kamel’ who ‘married in 2017′ only to spend their first year as newlyweds ‘separated by the U.S. Immigration’ system are Ed and Cherry, dancing around their kitchen. Their caption reads: ‘Back in High School, Ed and Cherry were crushing hard// They made out at the castle on the hill… A few years ago they reconnected, there were fireworks… They got married in 2019′. Now Ed and Cherry can add the arrival of their baby girl Lyra to their love story!