Ed Sheeran Reveals Why He Went Almost 10 Years Without a Phone

Ed Sheeran shared a rare personal story with fans during the first of three shows in Sydney, opening up about why he hasn’t used a mobile phone for nearly a decade. Speaking to a crowd of 70,000 at Accor Stadium on Friday, the British singer reflected on how a legal battle unexpectedly inspired one of his most emotional songs.

The Loop Tour stop included Sheeran performing hits like Castle on the Hill, Shape of You, and Perfect. Midway through the show, he addressed the $100 million copyright lawsuit over his 2014 hit Thinking Out Loud. The case, which claimed the song copied Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, lasted eight years before a New York jury cleared him in 2023.

“In the last 10 years, if you have seen my name in the news it might be related to a lawsuit – a copyright lawsuit in 2015,” Sheeran told the audience. “I got sued for a song by someone else that had said I had stolen their song, and the only thing I could do in that situation, because I hadn’t done it, was take it to court and prove that I hadn’t done it.”

As part of the legal process, Sheeran had to hand over his phone and other devices. “All I’ll say is that I’m glad there’s nothing weird on them, you know,” he joked. In fact, the experience brought him face-to-face with the phone he had switched off during a 2015 Australian tour.

“I did a tour down here for Multiply in 2015 and I remember at the end of that tour, I switched that phone off and going, ‘I do not want to use a mobile phone again,’” he said. He has relied on email ever since.

Rediscovering the device for the lawsuit proved emotional. “I opened it again for this lawsuit and I switched it on to go through the emails and text messages and that sort of stuff and it was like going through a time machine right back to 2015. But not only back to 2015 but to 2007, when I started texting on this number,” he said.

Sheeran found old messages with friends who had passed away and with family members he hadn’t contacted in years. The moment inspired Old Phone, a track from his 2025 album Play, which he performed for the crowd.

“I find whenever anything negative happens in my life, I write a song about it and it somehow makes sense of that bad thing that’s happened. And it also works with something good that happens in my life – I write a song about it,” Sheeran explained.

He also expressed his love for Australian audiences, saying the country was one of the first outside the U.K. to embrace his music. “This is why I love coming back to Australia. When I first came here when I was like 19 or 20, the crowds have always been nuts,” he said. “No matter the occasion, no matter the day, the crowd has always been nuts.”

Sheeran will continue his Australian tour with more shows in Sydney, followed by Brisbane, Melbourne, and Adelaide.

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