Ed Sheeran breaks down a lifetime of tattoos for GQ. From the singer’s most meaningful to his matching ‘Pingu’ tattoo with Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran tells the tales of his ink (and why each new tattoo is more painful than the last).
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00:00So how many tattoos do you think you have now?
00:04I see it as one tattoo, so I wouldn't be able to count.
00:08Yeah, people always say I look like I melted crayon.
00:16I grew up in a household.
00:17My parents, they worked in art,
00:19and I was surrounded by colorful paintings.
00:21My mum painted our bedroom, like, bright colors,
00:24and I was surrounded by creative, bright-colored things,
00:27and when I first started getting tattoos,
00:29I was just like, I like color.
00:33My first one was this little paw print.
00:36Christina Perry, it was in her brother's tattoo shop,
00:39and I had no idea, we actually ended up making music
00:41together and touring together in the future,
00:42but it was in her brother's tattoo shop in 2010.
00:45I'd just turned 18, and I was legal to get a tattoo,
00:48so I walked into this shop.
00:49I'd drawn this paw print on me for about three or four years
00:52every day with permanent marker,
00:54and I was like, that's gonna be my one tattoo,
00:56and I'll get no more.
00:58Obviously, that didn't last.
01:01Actually, I got these with Christina Perry.
01:03I was just about to play
01:05Madison Square Garden for three times.
01:07I was told by my dad, like, if you can make it in New York,
01:11you can make it anywhere in the world,
01:12and it's quite a significant thing for me
01:14to come here and play three nights.
01:16My grandfather was a boxer and worked in boxing as well,
01:20and Madison Square Garden is sort of synonymous with boxing,
01:23so that's why I got three boxing gloves.
01:25My grandfather had also just passed away,
01:26so it's kind of part and parcel of that.
01:31This was 2012, October.
01:34I featured on Taylor's album, Red.
01:36I got it to signify that.
01:37It was actually before,
01:38I think I hadn't been asked to be
01:40on the Red tour at that point.
01:41Maybe this clinched it, and then I went on the Red tour,
01:43and that was a year of my life living in America,
01:46so it's quite a significant tattoo of that time.
01:50What did she think of the tattoo?
01:53I can't remember, actually.
01:54I imagine at the time being like,
01:56why are you doing that?
01:59My favorite tattoo, my daughter drew a little bunny rabbit,
02:03and I got that tattooed,
02:04so that's probably my favorite one at the moment,
02:06just because it's always covered up,
02:07no one else sees it,
02:08but it's something that I look at every day.
02:11I've got my kids' footprints on my back.
02:14When they were born, we got their footprints,
02:16and I put them in little squares.
02:19After going to Antarctica,
02:22which is possibly the most amazing place on the planet,
02:26it's really blew my mind.
02:28Seeing the orcas for the first time
02:30when they come out of the water
02:31is really breathtaking.
02:32Also, when you're going into Antarctica,
02:34you see the first penguin,
02:36and you're like, oh my God,
02:37and then by the end of it,
02:38you're just like penguins,
02:40they're just everywhere.
02:40It's just like, oh, it's another fucking penguin.
02:43But that is what my daughter is named after, Antarctica.
02:48I mean, they're all kind of meaningful,
02:50but in terms of most meaningful,
02:52this little number one finger
02:55for my friend Michael, who passed away,
02:56and then this little SPTV
02:57for my friend Jamal that passed away.
02:59And I wanted to have them on my guitar playing hand,
03:01just so they're always there,
03:03because they've both been involved in my career
03:04in quite big ways.
03:09I met Damien Rice when I was super young.
03:12I'd gone to an under-18s show
03:14with my cousin in Dublin.
03:16I met him afterwards in the bar.
03:18He was just there having a pint,
03:19and I went up and spoke to him,
03:20and it was before I'd started writing songs
03:22or really taking that seriously,
03:23and that was like the turning point of my life, really.
03:27Have you seen the album cover photo?
03:28Anyway, it's like two little stick drawings,
03:30and then it says Damien Rice over,
03:32the two little stick drawings,
03:33and he took my album and signed it,
03:35and then drew a little stick drawing of me
03:38with a plane above me,
03:39because I'd flown over with my dad to Ireland.
03:41That's essentially stick drawing me with the plane.
03:43Kind of where my career started, essentially.
03:47There's something that I wanted to get for a while
03:48was the lyrics,
03:49everything that happens is from now on,
03:50from Reece Stacks.
03:52I'd spoken to Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol about it,
03:55and we were both like,
03:56that's our favorite lyric,
03:57we should get that tattooed,
03:58and I was like, if I ever meet him,
03:59I'll get to write it in his handwriting.
04:01He was playing in Suffolk,
04:03which is where I live,
04:04and I managed to get to meet him,
04:06and so I got it in the handwriting,
04:07I got it tattooed,
04:08and Gary decided that he didn't want to get it done.
04:11But Gary doesn't have any tattoos either.
04:12I think I'm a bit more free.
04:14Yeah, I think he's tattooed over his.
04:17It wasn't so much matching,
04:18I got the little Pingu penguin,
04:20and he got Pingu written.
04:22But I think he's covered it with an anchor,
04:24which obviously looks a bit cooler.
04:28I was doing the video for Galway Girl with Sir Sharon,
04:30and she tattoos me in the video,
04:32and I said to her,
04:33it'd be funny if we misspell it, Galway Grill.
04:38I think I'm a bit more free with skin.
04:40I think I'm a bit more free with skin.
04:44I think I said in an interview that she'd spelt it wrong,
04:46and then that went round that she'd spelt it wrong,
04:49but we had planned it.
04:51Saoirse did actually tattoo me.
04:52I don't think she's given a tattoo since,
04:53I think this is the sole Saoirse tattoo.
04:58I'm a big fan of the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,
05:01and I was making this sleeve,
05:03and getting tattoos in significant places
05:05that I was traveling,
05:06so I got the Heinz ketchup in Pittsburgh,
05:07and the koala in Australia.
05:10I was like, what do I get for Philly?
05:12I got Prince.
05:15I was on tour with Rickston.
05:17They're four lads, and we were on tour,
05:19and in Great Britain, there's a phrase
05:22of when you're going out drinking with the lads,
05:24you're lads on tour,
05:25and I was like, oh, we're lads on tour.
05:26We should get lads on tour tattooed.
05:28Yeah, it's about as basic as it can be, but yeah.
05:34I was playing Wembley Stadium.
05:37Wembley Stadium is the biggest stadium
05:39that we have in the UK.
05:41I didn't know I would be playing a stadium ever.
05:43I didn't even think I'd be playing arenas.
05:45I thought I was a theater artist,
05:47and I sold out three Wembleys in 2015 for the first time.
05:51The Wembley is the home of English football.
05:54The crest of English football is three lions,
05:57so I wanted to get something connected with that.
05:58I still think it's the biggest achievement of my life,
06:00playing Wembley Stadium.
06:03So I got plus, multiply, divide, and subtract
06:07tattooed around my wrist.
06:08I had the plan of the mathematics from like 2010 in my head.
06:13That was the plan of the albums that I was gonna do,
06:15plus, multiply, divide, and subtract.
06:17Equals came in there a bit later,
06:19but the next symbols have been on my arm
06:21for 13 years as well,
06:22and I saw that series next year.
06:24I guess that's kind of prison break of me, isn't it?
06:26Just clues.
06:27Most painful tattoo by far was Sagrada Familia.
06:32Eight hours of just like, you know,
06:34they do the tattoo needle with like 20 needles,
06:36and it's just scraping in.
06:38It was grim, like grim.
06:42I think tattoos hurt more the more you get.
06:44Like your first one, I remember getting this
06:46and being like, oh, that wasn't that bad.
06:48And I feel the older I'm getting,
06:49maybe it's just because I'm getting older,
06:50but someone said it's the more you get tattoos,
06:53that your body is saying, please stop doing this.
06:57And the more you get it, the more it's saying,
06:59please just fucking stop doing this.