Ed Sheeran was on top of the world when the devastating news that his pregnant wife had cancer made his life come crashing down. After countless doctor appointments, they thought there was a glimmer of hope at the end of their heartbreaking journey. But just as things were looking up tragedy struck. The sudden death of someone close to him sent Ed spiraling.
Ed reveals his year from hell, how he climbed out of the dark depths of his grief, and how Taylor Swift offered him life-changing advice.
Ed reveals his year from hell, how he climbed out of the dark depths of his grief, and how Taylor Swift offered him life-changing advice.
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00:00 Ed Sheeran seems like he's on top of the world, but he's having the worst year of his life.
00:05 Ed Sheeran broke down while performing.
00:07 The singer appears emotional.
00:09 Moment you find out the worst thing in the world has happened to someone that you love with all your heart.
00:14 He was like your everything. He believed in you when no one else did.
00:17 Before Taylor Swift made Ed into a household name, he gave him a shot.
00:22 We were having this rise together.
00:24 I didn't have anywhere to live. Everyone saw me as a joke.
00:26 My video on his platform was the first video that went over a million.
00:30 All of these things in my life would not exist had it not been for him.
00:33 It's been an amazing journey.
00:35 And then suddenly someone hangs you a shovel. I mean you're putting dirt on your mate's grave.
00:39 And he realized his wife might be next.
00:42 They found a tumor in Cherry's arm. The diagnosis wasn't good.
00:45 Everything in my life got so much better when she got into it.
00:48 I might die.
00:50 She's pregnant and I can't do anything.
00:51 Now he's spiraling out of control.
00:54 Massive alarm bells for me.
00:55 He needs to process. He hasn't processed it to him.
00:57 With his friend gone, Taylor is stepping in.
01:00 We don't really go a day without speaking.
01:02 Trying to help them to get through this.
01:04 But life doesn't really go on if the person you love most in the world isn't in it.
01:08 When did you realize everything was falling apart?
01:11 Cherry had gone to have her lump taken out and I kept saying to you that it was just
01:17 a lump and not to worry.
01:20 And that it was all good.
01:24 And then I was rehearsing and I remember getting a call from Ches.
01:27 The doctor was basically like,
01:30 like this is really bad.
01:33 We were like, oh okay.
01:36 And he was like, but we're not going to have results back for a month.
01:38 So we just sort of wandered around London for the day.
01:41 What happens is you kind of have the initial report
01:48 and then they look at treatment plans and like how you're going to manage it.
01:52 But then there were no treatment plans that worked with the six month pregnancy.
01:57 Yeah, it was like a difficult, difficult time.
02:05 The moment you find out that the worst thing in the world has happened
02:12 to someone that you truly love with all your heart.
02:14 You feel like you're drowning and can't get out from under it.
02:19 We were friends at school.
02:20 So he's in the year above, I'm in the year below.
02:23 Always really got on.
02:25 We had, I guess, flirted with the idea of flirting.
02:30 Does that make sense?
02:32 We did have a little smooch around that time.
02:35 Like, as you do when you're that age.
02:39 And then she basically went to university in America.
02:42 And then I went to university in England.
02:44 And then I went to university in England.
02:45 And then I went to university in England.
02:46 She basically went to university in America.
02:49 And I went on tour and I didn't see her for a few years.
02:51 I met a lot of people.
02:56 Had a lot of experiences that an 18 year old probably shouldn't have.
03:01 And when I didn't have a place, I'd stand on stage and be like,
03:04 "Hey, if anyone's got a couch tonight, it would usually work."
03:07 But there were just moments where I just wanted to give up.
03:12 Yeah, the nights that you don't have a couch to sleep on
03:15 or you don't have money in your pocket or food in your stomach
03:19 or a charged phone or anything.
03:21 Yeah, those become the nights where you reassess your situation.
03:24 But one day at a music festival, Ed met someone that saw his true potential.
03:30 With the music industry, you have to wait for one person to be like,
03:33 "That's great."
03:34 And for me, it was Jamal.
03:36 We sort of met late teens.
03:40 And I was a struggling singer-songwriter.
03:43 And he had this online YouTube platform called SBTV.
03:48 I started SBTV when I was roughly 15 years old.
03:52 I got a camera for Christmas.
03:53 Then I went out onto my estate, started filming the local talent
03:58 and then uploading it to YouTube.
03:59 Jamal was the first person I connected with in London who was my own age.
04:04 So we just bonded instantly as if we'd been to school together for the last 10 years.
04:08 He grew up loving grime music.
04:10 I grew up loving grime music.
04:11 And although I'm from Suffolk, he's from London.
04:13 We just feel like the same person.
04:15 I was living with him.
04:16 He'd become my best friend and we were having this sort of rise together.
04:21 Like I basically live in his bedroom.
04:24 His mum thought we were having a relationship.
04:26 In their bedroom, Jamal and Ed spent countless nights producing and making videos.
04:31 My success and his success was tied together.
04:35 Like we came up together.
04:37 So I'd be playing like Shepard's Wish Empire.
04:39 He would launch a record label, Sony.
04:42 We're constantly just like egging each other on.
04:44 But despite their growing success, Ed wasn't satisfied.
04:49 I was kind of getting in a rut where I'd just be doing the same things every single day.
04:52 I'd kind of wake up, I'd go to studio, I'd finish studio, I'd go and do a gig,
04:56 stay up for a bit, go to bed and repeat it, repeat it, repeat it.
04:59 And when I first moved to London, I was doing that.
05:01 But two years on, still doing that, I was kind of a bit like, is this the right thing?
05:06 So that's when I went to LA.
05:07 Ed left Jamal back in London and found someone new who understood his struggle.
05:13 The first thing that struck me was his voice.
05:15 I've never been more jealous of anything in my life.
05:17 We wrote several times.
05:18 And the first time that we wrote, we sat in a hotel room in, I think, like Arizona.
05:22 Wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, laughed and had the best time and became really close friends.
05:27 I'd been over to the States a lot.
05:28 I'd had a bit of success there.
05:30 But just having that stamp of approval took me from a theater artist to an arena artist and household name.
05:36 We don't really go a day without speaking, which is cool.
05:39 Like it's helping me through this whole mental process to have someone that's already been through it.
05:44 The rumor mill went into overdrive.
05:46 Are they together? Are they dating? Are they just friends? What's going on?
05:49 But while the tabloids spread rumors about Ed and Taylor,
05:52 she helped him reconnect with an old friend.
05:55 I always wanted to go to uni in the States.
05:58 I was playing field hockey out there, which was amazing.
06:00 And then I got an offer to work in tech and finance in New York.
06:07 Ed told People Magazine, "I went to Taylor's Fourth of July party.
06:11 I was texting Cherry and she was like, 'I'm in Rhode Island.' And I was like, 'So am I.'
06:15 I said to Taylor, 'Can I invite one of my old schoolmates?' The rest is history."
06:20 And then me and Cherry started dating and it was so like natural and it just felt right.
06:27 The reason we really connected like at that point in our lives was both of us,
06:32 a kind of mutual feeling of being isolated from like our friends and our family.
06:37 And I think that's what brought us together.
06:39 My and Cherry's relationship, it's the most amazing thing in my life that no one really knows about.
06:44 But Ed struggled to be present for his new relationship.
06:49 There would be times when it was like a good couple of months that we didn't see each other.
06:54 Every single week I got a postcard coming through the door.
06:57 They all say exactly the same thing.
07:00 So there's really not much, a man of a few words, weirdly.
07:05 They literally say, "Wish you were here."
07:08 Except for, he'll kill me for saying this, the one that says, "Wish you were her."
07:14 So, you know, that got the old mind racing.
07:19 And like I'll call Ed and he'll be on his iPad in the car.
07:24 And there'll be four other people in the car.
07:27 So it'd be like, "Oh, how you going?"
07:28 And like, "How's everything?"
07:29 You know, "What's going on?"
07:30 And I'm like, "Well, everything's falling apart."
07:32 But I can't tell you that because everyone's listening in.
07:35 Like, so you have that level of like detachment.
07:37 I totally knew what I was getting into.
07:40 There's definitely aspects of it which is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
07:45 And just as Ed and Cherry were starting a new family, they got some devastating news.
07:53 They found a tumour in Cherry's arm.
07:55 The diagnosis wasn't good.
07:57 And, you know, she's pregnant and they can't do anything.
07:59 Long story short, super **** got diagnosed with cancer, which was like a massive shitter.
08:05 We've said that twice now where it's like, "Oh, it's all good."
08:08 But like...
08:09 It was horrible, but...
08:11 I know, but like, you were saying it for the cameras, like, "Yeah, it's all right."
08:15 You said like, "Got diagnosed with cancer. No biggie."
08:17 Like, they f***ing held me.
08:19 They made me cry.
08:21 But like, you're definitely just playing it down, but it was horrible.
08:26 It was nully.
08:27 Those days were horrible days.
08:30 But the worst was yet to come.
08:32 Music entrepreneur and YouTube star Jamal Edwards has died at the age of 31.
08:38 He was a leading figure in Britain's rap and grime scene.
08:41 The cause of Jamal's devastating passing was due to cardiac arrhythmia
08:44 caused by having taken recreational drugs.
08:48 I just remember waking up in the morning and getting a call and just being like,
08:52 "He's dead."
08:53 And it's, you know, I've been speaking to him like four hours before that.
08:57 And I just didn't believe it for ages.
09:01 Do you feel like, "Oh, why wasn't he more responsible?
09:04 Why didn't he take care of himself?
09:05 He's such a great guy. He's a great human being. Why? Why?"
09:07 I think there's many more layers to that, man.
09:09 I think there's, you know, there's many...
09:10 I don't want to go into it, but there's more layers to it
09:13 than just what the media have reported, basically.
09:16 And when it was time to celebrate Jamal's life, Ed struggled to be present.
09:21 The funeral was like 30 people, but he knows like 10,000 people.
09:29 So this is the first event that like everyone can come to
09:32 and come together and remember him.
09:34 I just feel like such a weird, like...
09:42 I don't know.
09:46 I know everyone should be having fun.
09:48 That's the whole point, but I feel so just lost in there.
09:53 Ed tried to bury his grief and continue his work.
10:00 This year, there hasn't been a single day that he's not been working
10:05 or performing or writing or doing promo.
10:08 We've barely had a conversation this year about his mental health.
10:15 I can see it and like it's massive alarm bells for me.
10:18 There's no way he's had time to just sit and process and be at peace.
10:24 Despite his wife's concerns, Ed thought he had it all under control.
10:29 I like going on stage and having fun and showing people a good time
10:33 and having a good show.
10:34 I got into music because I love it.
10:36 I want to make people happy.
10:37 I think it's the best job in the world and that's why I do it.
10:39 But when Ed stepped out on stage, his true feelings caught up with him.
10:45 So I had a friend pass away at the beginning of the year, which was ****.
10:49 Worst time to cry?
11:00 No, because you can't sing when you cry.
11:06 I've never seen him cry on stage.
11:12 He doesn't really cry in general.
11:14 It's really unusual to see him cry.
11:17 But I just don't think he's had the time to...
11:20 He hasn't had the time to sit with his thoughts.
11:23 I felt like when Jamal died, I wanted the entire world to stop.
11:28 And it just felt like the next day, life just resumed.
11:33 Is that the time?
11:34 I felt embarrassed because it was a room full of people I didn't really know.
11:42 And they had come for a good night and my job is to be an entertainer.
11:48 And I didn't feel like an entertainer that night.
11:50 I felt like just a man on stage talking.
11:55 I don't get emotional on stage, but the Jamal thing is still really raw
12:01 because it only happened a few months ago.
12:04 And also, I don't think there's been time.
12:11 But now I've got to pretend to everyone that...
12:13 Everything's all good and we're all going to enjoy it at the last minute.
12:17 Let's just have an open door and have fun.
12:19 It's just mad. It's just like straight back to it.
12:22 Fly home, go and do something really intense.
12:27 And then straight back to the show must go on.
12:30 The Union Chapel gig was definitely like no other.
12:36 I've seen it performed for years and years and years and years.
12:38 And it was like no other gig I've ever seen.
12:40 He looked vulnerable, didn't he?
12:43 Lost without his best friend, Ed spent countless nights visiting Jamal.
12:49 The mural that people go to when he passed away was actually made when he was still alive.
12:56 That's how much people appreciated him.
12:59 Like it was all...
12:59 People were celebrating him when he was here.
13:03 I think he liked it.
13:06 [Music]
13:33 Friendship, it's just this chemistry that happens.
13:35 And it's burning.
13:38 You want to hang out with each other every single day and do all these things together.
13:41 And it's just about sharing everything.
13:43 When it ends, it's just...
13:47 Devastating.
13:51 You know, I was trying to knock down the door for so long.
13:57 And it wasn't until meeting him that a door actually opened.
14:02 My video on his platform was like the first video I ever had that went over like 20,000 views.
14:08 And then it was like 100,000, 500,000, a million.
14:10 My manager's first video he saw of me was an SPTV video, you know.
14:13 Like all of these things in my life, all of these pieces would not exist.
14:16 And I feel like I really wouldn't have had the eyes and ears on me had it not been for him.
14:23 For like the next five to ten years as well, I really need to sort of amp it up a bit.
14:27 So I'm at my halfway point.
14:29 I don't even think I've done what I've wanted to do yet.
14:32 It's horrible.
14:36 I know everyone goes through it.
14:42 I know it's like a common thing that you can't avoid.
14:45 But yeah.
14:49 After months of struggling, Ed's wife confronted him.
14:56 We just had a really, really low three months.
14:59 At the start of February, we had the diagnosis of the tumour.
15:04 We had sequencing of the tumour and that came back
15:10 much less severe than they thought it was originally, which was like the most incredible news.
15:16 Like I nearly threw up when the surgeon told us
15:20 we could wait till the end of the pregnancy to get the tumour out.
15:24 We didn't have to worry about delivering the baby early.
15:26 So we got that news and then the day after, Jamal died.
15:29 So my wife talked me into going into therapy and I started doing it.
15:34 And I realised it's not like a button that you press where you're like,
15:37 "I'm automatically okay," but it definitely helps.
15:39 And I would recommend if anyone's having like real lows,
15:42 like just speaking to someone who is paid to hear you out
15:46 and normalise it and be like, "It's okay to think like that."
15:48 It's just good to talk.
15:50 I like that I still feel this way.
15:52 I think this is the most respectful way to feel about someone that you've lost,
15:57 is actually allow yourself to feel, you know, rather than just bury it down.
16:03 The reason I haven't really done it before is like, I barely cry to my wife.
16:06 Like this last year has obviously been, but she's also seen like me show
16:11 real emotion over this last year.
16:14 But like, I don't, I feel uncomfortable at being a YouTube video
16:18 and a bunch of strangers are going to watch me feel something about my friend that's died.
16:23 Like, I know it's important for people to understand that, to hear the record,
16:28 but it's just not something I've ever wanted to do before.
16:31 Do you think she's relieved that you're getting there?
16:35 Yeah, I think so.
16:36 Ed's will never stop doing what he's doing.
16:39 Like it's really important that he carries on.
16:42 I think he's doing something incredibly special.
16:45 I really want to be able to support that and support him,
16:49 but at the same time, like preserving our family.
16:51 So it's about striking that balance, I guess.
16:55 As I always said, I would never spend more than 10 days away from Chaz and the kids.
17:02 And I actually think 10 days is actually way too long.
17:05 And also if there's like tension and arguments,
17:09 like I lose the ability to be like, "Hey, I love you."
17:13 And although he no longer had Jamal by his side,
17:16 there was someone else who wanted to help him continue what he and Jamal had started.
17:21 The last time I saw her was the day before Jamal died.
17:26 And we went out for dinner and then he died in the early hours of that morning.
17:32 We can be open with each other about that sort of stuff as well.
17:34 You know, I had like an hour 20 conversation with her yesterday
17:37 and we were just, everything that was on our minds, we talked about.
17:42 And it's, I mean, that in itself is kind of therapy as well,
17:46 because you're actually talking to someone that genuinely gets it.
17:49 - Oh, yeah, she's a real one.
17:50 - All the things that you feel and have insecurities about
17:55 and how other people treat you, or how your family treat you,
17:57 how your friends treat you, like she's just basically in the same sphere.
18:02 - I have a real affinity to her.
18:05 Like obviously, like musically, she's brilliant.
18:08 But like as a human and as a career,
18:10 like we've sort of known each other since the start of my career.
18:13 And we're just very similar people.
18:15 - She was the inspiration for it.
18:19 She said, "I think it'd be really important for you as an artist
18:22 to do what I did and work with Aaron, because this is what it did for me.
18:25 And I think you and Aaron should work together."
18:26 So that sort of opened the door to it.
18:28 And I am incredibly grateful.
18:30 I'm making some of the like most meaningful music to me
18:34 that I've made in a very long time.
18:36 - Ed Sheeran is honoring his late best friend, Jamal Edwards, in new song.
18:40 - This is one of the most important things that I've ever done in my career.
18:44 And I want to make sure that I enunciate, pronounce everything right,
18:48 say everything I want to say, do it in the right flow.
18:50 Like it has to be perfect.
18:51 - I actually avoided writing it for like ages and ages and ages,
18:55 because I knew I was going to write an F64,
18:57 but I was like, "What do I write it about?"
18:59 And then one day the first line came to me,
19:02 and then it just all came out in like two hours.
19:05 I kind of was like, "What can we do that's going to be..."
19:08 Like I wanted to do something that you know that he'd be like
19:15 ultimately, ultimately gassed about.
19:17 - He would be like, "Ed, come on."
19:19 - "Come on."
19:20 - "Come on."
19:21 Literally, it's insane.
19:23 You smashed it.
19:24 I literally cannot wait to see it all come together.
19:27 - I do believe that one day I will see him again,
19:30 and this will be the first thing that he's like,
19:32 "Oh my God, I can't believe you did that."
19:34 - The Jamal thing, like I'm never going to feel okay about that,
19:42 but that's not going to stop me from like having fun
19:45 and going out and spending time with friends,
19:47 and like I'm not going to feel guilty
19:48 if I'm having a nice time and stuff.
19:50 That's like life is for living.
19:54 - I cannot stress how unusual it is to have Ed's at home
19:59 for a long period of time.
20:00 - Being here and being able to just be present.
20:03 - I'd say the last kind of year and a half
20:05 has been a big transition phase for us.
20:08 - Oh, it's cold.
20:13 - Everything's about balance,
20:15 and I think that's one way he's massively changed,
20:18 just like trying to weave in a lot more personal time.
20:20 I think now's the only time he's really taken a step back,
20:24 I think, and started to just like process everything
20:28 and give himself like the mental space.
20:32 - Had my follow-up MRI scan of my arm
20:37 just to see if the tumor had come back,
20:39 and we saw the surgeon, he looked at the scans,
20:42 and it all looks good.
20:46 - I think everything's in perspective.
20:50 Nothing matters other than health and time with people.
20:54 - No one ever really has it like truly figured out,
20:56 and I feel like every week I'm learning,
20:59 and becoming more of an adult.
21:04 - Life is unpredictable, but life goes on,
21:06 and you just take it one day at a time.
21:10 [Music]
21:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]