After concluding touring for his third album ‘Divide’ earlier this year, Ed Sheeran has announced that he is taking a break from music and social media. On Christmas Eve, the singer took to Instagram to announce the news that he is taking a, well-deserved, break.
Taking to Instagram, on Christmas Eve, Sheeran wrote: “Hello all. Gonna go on another break again. The Divide era and tour changed my life in so many ways, but now it’s all over it’s time to go out and see some more of the world. I’ve been a bit non stop since 2017 so I’m just gonna take a breather to travel, write and read. I’ll be off all social media until it’s time to come back.
“To all my family and friends, see ya when I see ya – and to my fans, thank you for always being amazing, I promise to be back with some new music when the time is right and I’ve lived a little more to actually have something to write about. Lots of love x.” He captioned the statement and then changed his profile picture to “BRB”, which further confirmed the news of his time out.
Sheeran’s break comes after he was recently named the UK’s artist of the decade. The ‘Shape of You’ singer, achieved the huge milestone after scoring a combined run of 12 number one albums and singles between 2010 and 2019, which is more than any other artist in the UK. Sheeran was also named, alongside Drake, as one of Spotify’s most streamed artists of the decade.
The announcement of his hiatus comes after Sheeran revealed he lost four stone, in weight, after he was targeted by trolls – who labelled him fat. The ‘Shape of You’ singer revealed that the extra weight was down to him living a poor lifestyle that involved fatty foods, drinking, and no exercise.
Speaking on the marathon running-themed Behind the Medal podcast, he revealed that he dropped from 16 to 12 stone by replacing beer with vodka and taking up running and cycling to stay in shape. Speaking about his weight, Sheeran said: “My problem was I’d go to the pub, have bangers and mash, a pie, maybe a pudding and then loads of pints. And then not exercise.
“My friends used to call me Two Dinners Teddy. On tour, it’s very easy to drink every single day because there’s always someone visiting. I had to make a real effort on the tour. I’m 12 stone now. I started running. I’ve got into cycling as well.”
Sheeran revealed that his weight gain was a reason he didn’t appear in some of his first big music videos. He said: “I was the same sort of age as the One Direction boys and Justin Bieber and all these people who had six-packs and I was kind of like, ‘Oh, should I look like this?'”
Sheeran added that he thought anyone pointing out insecurities in others was probably quite insecure to do so, speculating that a lot of the online trolls who had called him fat may well have weight problems themselves.
Meanwhile, Sheeran left his fans with one last parting gift before his break, as he released his new music video, which sees him seemingly confirming when he married wife Cherry Seaborn. Sheeran’s video for his new collaboration, ‘Put It All On Me’, with Ella Mai, sees him telling the love stories of couples from across the globe, including his own.
