Ed Sheeran’s emotional announcement: ‘So painful’

Singing superstar Ed Sheeran has opened up about the toll a high-profile legal battle has taken on his mental health.

Ed Sheeran says his mental health suffered and that he was left pained after being accused of copying someone else’s work for his 2017 hit song Shape Of You.

He issued an emotional statement after he won the $5.4 million copyright battle after an 11-day trial, The Sun reports.

Ed, 31, and his Shape Of You co-writers denied ripping off songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue and their 2015 song Oh Why.

During court proceedings, lawyers for the duo accused him of being a “magpie” who “borrows ideas”.

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The British crooner says the lawsuit took a toll on his mental health. Picture: WireImage.

Speaking directly to his fans using social media, dad-of-one Ed said: “There was a lot of talk throughout this case about cost. But there is more than just a financial cost.

“There is a cost on creativity. When we are tangled up in lawsuits, we are not making music or playing shows.

“There is a cost on our mental health. The stress this causes on all sides is immense. It affects so many aspects of our everyday lives and the lives of our families and friends.

“We are not corporations. We are not entities. We are human beings. We are songwriters.”

“We are human beings,” declared the singer. Picture: Getty Images.

Speaking about the impact on his life, Ed added: “It is so painful to hear someone publicly, and aggressively, challenge your integrity.

“It is so painful to have to defend yourself against accusations that you have done something that you haven’t done and would never do.”

During the court battle, musicians Chokri and O’Donoghue claimed the chorus of Sheeran’s tune, which goes “oh I oh I oh I”, was nicked from their chorus “oh why oh why oh why”.

But in the ruling in London, Mr Justice Zacaroli found the singer had not even heard the Oh Why song before writing his own hit and concluded he “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied the phrase.

Sheeran’s court battle began last month, with a decision handed down today. Picture: AFP.

Ed said he fought hard to clear his name in a bid to help others.

He added: “Our hope in having gone through all of this, is that it shows that there is a need for a safe space for all songwriters to be creative, and free to express their hearts.

“That is why we all got into this in the first place. Everyone should be able to freely express themselves in music, in art and do so fearlessly.

“At the same time, we believe that there should be due process for legitimate and warranted copyright protection.

“However, that is not the same as having a culture where unwarranted claims are easily brought. This is not constructive or conducive to a culture of creativity.”

In another statement posted to Instagram, Sheeran declared “baseless” plagiarism claims “damaging to the songwriting industry”.

“Claims like this are way too common now,” he said.

“There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released everyday on Spotify. That’s 22 million songs per year, and there’s only 12 notes that are available.”

Sheeran asserted coincidences are “bound to happen” with “only so many notes” available to all songwriters.

The lawsuit wasn’t the first time Sheeran’s faced accusations of plagiarism.

In 2018, after co-writing Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s duet The Rest Of Our Life, he was accused of “blatantly copying” a 2014 song called When I Found You, by two Australian songwriters Sean Carey and Beau Golden,

In 2016, the family of music legend Marvin Gaye claimed Sheeran copied the “heart” of Gaye’s classic Let’s Get It On and repeated it continuously throughout his hit Thinking Out Loud.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and is reproduced here with permission

Originally published as Ed Sheeran’s emotional announcement: ‘So painful’