Ed Sheeran and his wife, Cherry, welcomed their first child, daughter Lyra, last year, but he admits he had a hard time imagining how he could be a father and a stadium-filling superstar at the same time. So he did the logical thing: He asked another guy who’d done it.
Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Ed explains, “When I found out Cherry was pregnant, I was like, ‘How do I navigate this into my career?’ And I’d just watched Rattle and Hum, the U2 doc and…Bono…had his first child and…then they went on to have like a 30-year career of playing stadiums. And I was like, ‘This is the one guy I feel like…I could relate to."”
So Ed reached out to Bono, and the two spoke for three hours.
“He is the sweetest guy…I don’t know what made him take the call, but we’re sort of having this chat and he was telling me about how he navigated being a father, like where his kids went to school and how they did tour and stuff like that,” Ed explained. “And I was just kind of taking it all in and he hung up the phone and…then I went through a deep dive of U2 on vinyl.”
As for his experience as a dad, Ed admits, “I’m learning day by day…my lifestyle has completely shifted…I used to do everything to excess…I loved drinking everything in sight and all the other stuff.”
“And when Cherry was six months pregnant, I was like, ‘Right…I’m just going to stop excess and just be available and be the husband that I’m meant to be,"” he adds. “And yeah, and then from there it’s kind of been like clean, healthy living.”
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