How Ed Sheeran’s school sweetheart Cherry won his love after string of A-list exes
IT turns out Ed Sheeran is just as good at making babies as he is hit records.
As The Sun revealed yesterday, he is to become a dad for the first time, with his wife Cherry privately telling pals: “Well, we had to do something during lockdown”.
She also shared a silhouetted snap of her growing bump at their home in Suffolk, where they have been keeping a low profile throughout the pregnancy.
The only sighting of Ed, 29, and Cherry, 28, over the past five months was in March, when they were pictured at Cambridge Hockey Club, where keen player Cherry sported a hint of a bump underneath a rather large puffer coat.
The childhood pals, who married in secret last year after dating for four years, have always wanted kids but planned to wait until Ed finished promoting his mammoth Divide tour last Christmas to fully concentrate on starting a family.
And thankfully for them it was a smooth journey — much like their fairytale relationship. A source close to the star said: “Ed and Cherry have spoken about having kids for some time and their intention was to try during his break from music.
“Ed didn’t want to be halfway around the world, jetting around on private planes, when Cherry was expecting.
“He wanted to be right next to her every step of the way and it’s just worked out so perfectly for them.”
Ed has spoken about how he suffered with anxiety before he and Cherry met again in 2015, having previously been at school together.
The singer says he struggled to cope with the trappings of fame after being thrown into superstardom in his early twenties.
His life turned into one big party, he was drinking heavily, bedding supermodels and experiencing a string of doomed relationships, which even included a love triangle with chart star Ellie Goulding and One Direction singer Niall Horan.
Ed once revealed that while he supported Taylor Swift on her 2013 North American tour, he slept with one of her famous “girl squad”.
The nickname refers to her female pals of models, singers, actors and reality stars, including Gigi Hadid, Hailee Steinfeld, Cara Delevingne and Lorde.
Ed said: “Taylor’s world is celebrity. I was this 22-year-old awkward British kid going on tour with the biggest artist in America, who has all these famous mates. It was very easy. I would often find myself in situations just kind of waking up and looking over and being like, ‘How the f*** did that happen?’.
Ed has also been linked with model Athina Andrelos and Scottish singer Nina Nesbitt, who he has written songs about.
But while his record sales and tour schedules grew, his demons were also starting to become harder to control.
It got so bad that his friends and family staged an intervention, sparking his break from the industry in 2015 — shortly after he started dating Cherry.
Speaking about going off the rails, he said: “I didn’t really notice it was happening. It just started gradually happening, and then some people took me to one side and were like, ‘Calm yourself down’.
“It’s all fun to begin with, it all starts off as a party and then you’re doing it on your own and it’s not, so that was a wake-up call.” During his year off, Ed nurtured his romance with Cherry, who quit her accounting job in the US to travel the world with him. Her firm had said she could return to its London office after.
Being in Cherry’s company for such an extended period turned Ed’s life around, as her clean living and positive nature rubbed off on him. He said: “I think that was a real help grounding me. I was a 25-year-old in the music industry on tour, so I just needed someone to balance me out.”
Ed, who quit smoking and cut down on drinking, added about his year out: “This has been the first time I’ve actually had the time to fall in love properly. So the catalyst of taking a year off was also the fact that my partner quit her job in New York — which she’s now got back in London, which is kinda cool — but we were just basically like, ‘let’s both quit our jobs and have a year of forming a tight bond’.
“So we went travelling and spent every day for a year together. I’ve probably had three days apart from her in the last year but we’re very, very strong.
“I’ve never been happier. I’ve never been more comfortable. I’ve never been more inspired. I feel like everything’s fallen into place, and it’s fallen into place because I’ve given it the time to fall into place.”
The couple met as children at Thomas Mills High School in Framlingham, Suffolk. Ed admits he used to have a crush on Cherry, yet never acted on it. They lost touch when she went to university in the US before moving to New York and working on Wall Street.
Their first date came at the American Institute For Stuttering gala, where she accompanied him to accept an award. Their second was at a birthday party for the manager of pop star Adele. It was at this showbiz bash when Ed realised he had found The One — after he “tested” her for a few hours.
He explained: “One of the main points of being in a relationship with me, you have to be really fing sociable and good at talking to people, because I will be dragged away loads at parties and events.”
“And Cherry’s perfect at it. She makes friends with everyone.” Their romance was made public by superstar pal Taylor.
She posted an Instagram picture of the pair kissing at a special party she held in their honour to celebrate their first anniversary — or “Ed-iver-cherry” as she put it to her millions of followers.
They married in not quite so public fashion last year in front of a small gathering of friends and family at Ed’s £3.7million country estate in Suffolk.
Ed revealed his and Cherry’s desire to have children back in March 2017, when the subject of babies came up during an interview to promote his Divide tour in America.
He said: “Whenever anyone brings babies around, I’m like, ‘We gotta get on that’.” And speaking last year, he admitted he would not tour for a decade if he had children with Cherry, who he says he is totally besotted with.
He added: “I constantly wake up every day and look at Cherry and think, ‘Why the f are you with me?’. She could be with anyone she wants but she has chosen me. And I am saying all of the things that are wrong with me and she still wants to be with me.”
Ed’s pals are just as grateful for Cherry being with him, as they believe her good influence has saved him.
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Ed now lives a much healthier and positive lifestyle, which will not only benefit his relationship, but is bound to help his creativity inside the studio.
But given his focus on being there for Cherry and being a top dad to his first-born, it could be some time before he gets round to releasing his next album.
But if anyone is happier singing nursery rhymes by the side of a cot than belting out bangers at stadium gigs right now, it’s Ed.
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