Ed Sheeran apparently went against the advice of his own team with an interview over the weekend about his recent court case.
The chart-topping singer was recently embroiled in a lawsuit over his 2014 hit Thinking Out Loud, due to allegations that his track violated the copyright of the Marvin Gaye classic Let’s Get It On.
Last week, a jury ruled in Ed’s favour, with the Grammy winner sitting down for a pre-recorded interview with CBS Sunday Morning before the verdict was decided upon.
Asked about the Thinking Out Loud lawsuit, Ed began: “There’s like four chords that get used in pop songs. And if you just think, mathematically, the likelihood of this song having the same chords as this song… there’s multiple, multiple songs —it’s all the same four chords.”
Following this, Ed paused and seemingly addressed an off-screen member of his team, when he declared: “Dude, I’m a musician, I can fucking speak about this.”
“You are going to get this with every single pop song from now on,” he then lamented. “Unless it just stops, which I don’t think it does because it’s a big-money business to take things to court.
“But, like, you can only get caught out if you’ve done something wrong, and I have not done something wrong. I used four chords that are very common chords to use.”
After the ruling on Friday, Ed said in a public statement: “I’m obviously very happy with the outcome of this case and it looks like I’m not going to have to retire from my day job after all.”
This referred to a comment he made earlier in the trial, apparently stating he would step back from his music career were he to be found guilty.
Ed added on Thursday: “I am absolutely frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all. Having to be in New York for this trial has meant that I have missed being with my family at my grandmother’s funeral in Ireland. I won’t get that time back.
“We need songwriters and the wider musical community to come together to celebrate and support creativity. These claims and the people who manipulate songwriters for their own gain need to be stopped so that the creative process can carry on and we can all get back to making music. I am not and never will allow myself to be a piggy bank for someone to shake.”
Last year, Ed faced a similar lawsuit over accusations he and his co-writers ripped off the 2015 single Oh Why by Sam Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue on Ed’s signature tune Shape Of You.
In that instance, a judge also ruled in the Castle On The Hill singer’s favour, stating that the writing team on Shape On You had neither “deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a section of Oh Why while creating their tune.
On Friday, Ed released his fifth studio album, – (pronounced Subtract), which received some of the best reviews of his career so far.
The collection was preceded by lead single Eyes Closed, which peaked at number one in the UK singles chart upon its release in March.