Ellie Goulding won't admit to dating him; Miley Cyrus says he's "granola;" and Julian
Casablancas says he's only successful thanks to "cultural brainwashing."
Yep, this ginger crooner faces a tough crowd among his famous peers.
These are the celebs who can't stand Ed Sheeran.
Nicki Minaj
When women of color speak out about systemic inequality, people generally don't want to
hear a rich white dude's retort but Sheeran still weighed in on the 2015 MTV VMA nominations
for Video of the Year, which Nicki Minaj said celebrated skinny women almost exclusively
at the expense of her "Anaconda" video.
She also implied there was a racial element to the snub.
"The way I look at it is, I know eventually in my career I'm gonna have Grammys.
This year is just about being nominated"
Taylor Swift misinterpreted Minaj's tweet as a subtweet towards her, tweeting back,
"I've done nothing but love & support you.
It's unlike you to pit women against each other.
Maybe one of the men took your slot."
Minaj claimed that she wasn't talking about Swift, but suggested that the singer speak
on the issue.
Sheeran then took it upon himself to defend Swift, telling The Daily Telegraph,
"[Swift] just made some good videos and people think they're good.
[…] [Minaj's] point is that you have to be skinny and white to get a Video of the
Year nomination, but Beyoncé's '7/11' is in there, and that is celebrating the female
figure in every form."
Sheeran later told BuzzFeed UK that his words were taken out of context.
Minaj won, however, when a video of heavily buzzed Sheeran attempting her "Monster" verse
went viral.
"I do know the words but you've given me four shots"
She praised him for it, which many of her beloved Barbz interpreted as shade.
Ellie Goulding
This one looks like a case of he said she said.
Back in August 2013, Sheeran was spotted holding hands with Ellie Goulding at the VMAs.
One month later, he said in a radio interview,
"I mean, normal people don't hold hands if they're just friends […] It was going on.
And now it's not."
"Me and Ed, just like, y'know we're friends, so…whatever"
Fast forward to 2014, and Sheeran drops "Don't," which many believed to be about Goulding,
who was linked to Niall Horan just after she and Sheeran were supposedly together.
A year later, Sheeran told EW that he never confirmed the track was about Goulding, but
he also didn't deny it, saying,
"I had to be as honest as possible in that song because otherwise what's the f---ing
point?
It didn't necessarily have to go on the album, but it definitely needed to be written."
Goulding then admitted to Elle UK,
"I did go on a few dates with Niall, but I was never in a relationship with Ed.
I have absolutely no idea where that came from and why it was turned into such a big
thing."
She then addressed him on her track "On My Mind," singing,
"You wanted my heart but I just liked your tattoos."
Elton John
"Ed Sheeran.
Ed Sheeran, yeah"
Elton John acted as a mentor and friend to Sheeran for years — with Sheeran also signing
to his Rocket Management Company.
"Elton has had many different impacts on my life"
“...helping me sort of charter this weird little music industry game"
But even the legendary singer got tired of Sheeran's schtick after a while, warning him
that he shouldn't get too used to his success.
John said on George Ezra's podcast in 2018,
"On the [US radio] chart, which is the middle-of-the-road chart, Ed is still No.1 and 'Shape Of You'
is still in the chart.
It's like, 'Why?'
How many times do you want to listen to these things?"
Granted, John still had loads of affection for Sheeran a year earlier, when he told Rolling
Stone, he loved him "to death."
But the sentiment was not without a dash of shade, when he added,
"He was so omnipresent I said, 'Ed, even I'm sick of you.
Go away.'"
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus shaded Sheeran in a 2017 interview will Billboard, telling the magazine that
her Younger Now album was "singer-songwriter-y", but,
"[…] not granola.
I don’t listen to Ed Sheeran and John Mayer and stuff."
The shade may have stemmed from years before, when Sheeran himself who's been accused of
appropriating culture like Cyrus has told The Mirror in 2013,
"I think encouraging young people to twerk might be a bad thing.
[…] If I had a daughter […] I wouldn't want her twerking."
He also quipped that Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" "was a brilliant song," but said the video
is distracting to the music.
"I heard the Wrecking Ball song the other day, before I saw the video, and I was like
great another good tune.
And then I saw the video, and I was like you don't need to do that"
Cyrus may have caught wind of his commentary, because at the MTV VMAs in August 2014, she
was caught allegedly mouthing a profanity in his direction.
Julian Casablancas
Julian Casablancas doesn't necessarily have a personal dislike for Sheeran, but his suggestion
to Vulture that Sheeran's success is perhaps due to "cultural brainwashing" doesn't exactly
sound like a compliment.
"It's more the lie that's frustrating in this day and age"
The Strokes and Voidz frontman expanded on his theory, telling the mag in 2018,
"People grow up with norms knocked into their heads.
I'm not trying to diss Ed Sheeran.
I'm just saying I don't understand why there can't be a world where Ed Sheeran gets 60
percent of the attention and Ariel Pink gets 40 percent.
Now it's almost like Ed Sheeran gets 99.5 percent of it."
Casablancas also admitted that Sheeran's music wasn't his thing, and that the crooner's popularity
can largely be attributed to music industry "propaganda."
Ouch.
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