His latest album Divide may be riding high on the wave of success, with its smash hit lead single Shape of You ruling the airwaves ever since its release. But guess what? Ed Sheeran actually wrote the song for someone else!
Yup, you read that right. The 26-year-old British singing sensation recently confessed that he nearly passed the opportunity to release the catchy tune as he had initially started writing it for girl-group Little Mix, reported Daily Mail.
Speaking to BeBox’s Will Best, Ed admitted that the song was penned for the Little Mix as he didn’t think it suited him. But then he finally realised the potential of Shape of You and decided to keep it.
His confession came in response to Will’s question about rumours claiming the song had actually written for Rihanna. “Actually, you know what? I got reminded the other day, we started it for Little Mix originally,” Ed responded. “And then half way through, I was like actually this could be good for Rihanna and then more of the way through, we were like this is actually pretty good! We should keep it!”
Explaining himself further, the A Team hitmaker stated, “I didn’t want to keep it. I was like we should give it away because it doesn’t really sound like me, but this is way before I sunk my teeth into it and put acoustic guitars on it. The first draft of it I wouldn’t have put on. It was very different.”
The tune which was streamed 53 million times in under seven days since release. Ed even put himself out on Twitter and asked for opinions on Divide after its release and received mostly positive response from fans around the world.