Ed Sheeran opened up about his long-running copyright lawsuit during the first of three Sydney shows, telling a crowd of 70,000 at Accor Stadium that being forced to hand over his devices in court unexpectedly led to one of his most personal songs.
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The British singer-songwriter kicked off the Sydney leg of his Loop Tour on Friday (Feb. 14), performing hits including “Castle on the Hill,” “Shape of You” and “Perfect.” Midway through the set, Sheeran paused to address the $100 million copyright lawsuit filed in 2015 alleging that his 2014 single “Thinking Out Loud” copied elements of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”
In 2023, after an eight-year legal battle, a New York jury found that Sheeran did not copy the 1973 classic. Speaking to the Sydney audience, Sheeran reflected on the toll of the case and the unusual position it put him in.
“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,” he said. “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 said he was required to hand over his electronic devices so investigators could review messages and files.
“All I’ll say is that I’m glad there’s nothing weird on them, you know,” he joked.
Sheeran told fans that he has not owned a mobile phone since the lawsuit was filed. He said he stopped using one during a 2015 Australian tour and later rediscovered the device when it was requested as evidence in court.
“I did a tour down here [in Australia] 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. “I moved to email and I’ve used email since then.”
Powering the phone back on years later 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 to right back to 2015. But not only back to 2015 but to 2007, when I started texting on this number,” he said.
“It proper like spun me out. I was like frozen in time,” he added, noting that he found old conversations with friends who had since died and with family members he had not spoken to in years.
The experience ultimately inspired “Old Phone,” a track from his 2025 album Play, which Sheeran performed for the stadium 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,” he told fans.
“Any song you hear of mine is basically like two-minute extremities. Either I feel a lot of this or I feel a lot of this … I find when the bad days happen, good songs come from it.”
Elsewhere in the show, Sheeran expressed his affection for Australian audiences, recalling that 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.”
Later in the show, he gushed about his love for Australia, sayign, “Sydney, it feels amazing to be back. If you haven’t lost your voice tomorrow, I haven’t done my job.
“Australia was the first place I had a hit outside of the UK … so I am super happy to start the tour here. It means a lot and I hope you know that.”
Sheeran is scheduled to perform two more Sydney dates before continuing the Australian run in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.
