Ed Sheeran has said he feels like he and Taylor Swift are “siblings”, and commented on the pop star’s previous claims that he is “the James Taylor to my Carole King”.
The ‘Shape Of You’ hitmaker spoke out about his long-time friendship with the singer when he took part in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month.
In the discussion, Sheeran looked back at previous comments from Swift about their close friendship, and how she previously described him as “the James Taylor to my Carole King”.
“Obviously, we’re the opposite sex, and we’re from different countries and cultures, but I feel very intertwined creatively with her,” he told the outlet.
“I do really agree with the James Taylor and Carole King thing,” he added. “We have very transient lives [but] I do see her from time to time. And when we see [each other], you just lock back in and reconnect, and it’s like no time has passed.
“It’s very similar to a sibling.”
The two have been friends since the early 2010s, and collaborated on multiple tracks together, including ‘Everything Has Changed’, ‘End Game’ and ‘Run’. Sheeran has also opened for Swift during her ‘Red’ tour, and the ‘Bad Blood’ singer also brought him out as a special guest during the first of her five-night ‘Eras’ tour run at Wembley Stadium.
The comments from Swift comparing Ed to James Taylor were made to Rolling Stone back in 2017, and also saw her explain how they have both got the same breed of cat, have made arts and crafts together, “vacationed with our families and had each other’s backs”.
Despite their close relationship, Sheeran did recently reveal that he didn’t find out about Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce through the singer herself, but via her post on Instagram like everyone else.
The ‘Eras Tour’ headliner then joked about the mishap on Jimmy Fallon, and clarified that he is still “one of her absolute favourite people”, and she didn’t tell him because he doesn’t have a phone. She also dropped hints that he may be performing at her wedding.
Ed then took things one step further and publicly dismissed rumours of a rift between him and Swift, and said that the two of them had a four-hour-long conversation to catch up.
“I’m not self-conscious about my relationship with her,” he told Access Hollywood. “We’ve been friends for very, very many years. We’re super close and we see each other when we see each other, and when we see each other, we lock back into where we left off.”
Since they met in the early 2010s, Sheeran has admitted that he regularly confides in Swift and that they discuss each other’s work together. In 2021, he also revealed that he once took the pop icon to his local pub for a drink, and was amazed when nobody recognised her.
Also that year, he shared a video of him re-recording his vocals for her song ‘Everything Has Changed’, after featuring on the 2012 original track.
