Ed Sheeran Tells The Stories Behind His Tattoos

[upbeat music]

[Interviewer] So, how many tattoos

do you think you have now?

I see it as one tattoo.

So, I wouldn't be able to count.

Yeah, people always say I look like a melted crayon.

[upbeat music continues]

I grew up in a household, my parents, they worked in art,

and I was surrounded by colorful paintings.

My mum painted our bedroom, like, bright colors

and I was surrounded by creative, bright colored things.

And when I first started getting tattoos,

I was just like, I like color.

My first one was this little paw print.

Christina Perri.

It was in her brother's tattoo shop and I had no idea.

We actually ended up making music together

and touring together in the future,

but it was her brother's tattoo shop in 2010.

I'd just turned 18, and I was legal to get a tattoo,

so I walked into the shop.

I'd drawn this paw print on me

for about three or four years every day

with permanent marker.

And I was like,

That's gonna be my one tattoo and I'll get no more.

Obviously that didn't last.

Actually, I got these with Christina Perri.

I was just about to play Madison Square Garden

for three times.

I was told by my dad like,

If you can make it in New York,

you can make it anywhere in the world.

And it's quite a significant thing for me to come here

and play three nights.

My grandfather was a boxer and worked in boxing as well.

And Madison Square Garden is sort of synonymous with boxing,

so that's why I got three boxing gloves.

My grandfather had also just passed away,

so it's kind of part and parts of that.

[lively music]

This was 2012, October.

I featured on Taylor's album Red.

I got it to signify that.

It was actually before, I think I hadn't been asked

to be on The Red Tour at that point.

Maybe this clinched it, and then I went on The Red Tour

and that was a year of my life living in America.

So it's quite a, like, significant tattoo

of, like, that time.

[Interviewer] What did she think of the tattoo?

I can't remember actually.

I imagine at the time being like,

Why are you doing that?

My favorite tattoo,

my daughter drew a little bunny rabbit,

and I got that tattooed.

So that's probably my favorite one at the moment

just because it's always covered up.

No one else sees it but it's something

that I look at every day.

I've got my kids' footprints on my back.

When they were born, we got their footprints,

and I put them in little squares.

After going to Antarctica,

which is possibly the most amazing place on the planet.

Like, it's really blew my mind.

Seeing the orcas for the first time

when they come outta the water,

it's, like, really breathtaking.

Also, like, when you're going into Antarctica,

you see the first penguin and you're like,

Oh my God!

And then by the end of it you see you're just like penguins,

they're just everywhere, and it's just like,

Oh, it's another fucking penguin.

But that is what my daughter is named after, Antarctica.

I mean, they're all kind of meaningful,

but in terms of, like, most meaningful,

I'd say, like, this little number one finger

for my friend Michael who passed away

and then this little SB.TV for my friend Jamal

who passed away.

And I wanted to have them on my guitar playing hand

just so they're always, like, there,

'cause they'd both been involved

in my career in quite big ways.

[upbeat hiphop music]

I met Damien Rice when I was, like, super young.

I'd gone to, like, an under 18 show

with my cousin in Dublin.

I met him afterwards in the bar.

He was just there having a pint,

and I went up and spoke to him,

and it was before I'd started writing songs

or really taken that seriously,

and that was, like, the turning point of my life, really.

Have you seen the album cover photo?

Anyway, it's like two little stick drawings

and then it says Damien Rice

over the two little stick drawings,

and he took my album, and signed it,

and then drew a little stick drawing of me

with a plane above me,

'cause I'd flown over with my dad to Ireland.

That's essentially a stick drawing of me with the plane.

Kind of where my career started, essentially.

[upbeat hiphop music continues]

Something that I wanted to get for a while was the lyrics,

Everything that happens is from now on.

From re: stacks.

I'd spoken to Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol about it,

and we were both like,

That's our favorite lyric, we should get that tattooed.

And I was like,

If I ever meet him I'll get to write it

in his handwriting.

He was playing in Suffolk, which is where I live,

and I managed to get to meet him,

and so, I got it in handwriting, I got it tattooed,

and Gary decided that he didn't wanna get it done.

But Gary doesn't have any tattoos either.

I think I'm a bit more free with skin.

[Interviewer] I also heard you have a matching tattoo

with Harry Styles.

Yeah, I think he's tattooed over his.

It wasn't so much matching.

I got the little Pingu penguin and he got Pingu written,

but I think he's covered it with an anchor,

which obviously looks a bit cooler. [chuckles]

[intense hiphop music]

I was doing the video for Galway Girl with Saoirse Ronan

and she tattoos me in the video, and I said to her,

It'd be funny if we misspell it Galway Grill.

I think I said in an interview that she'd spelt it wrong,

and then that went 'round that she'd spelt it wrong,

but we had planned it.

So, she did actually tattoo me.

I don't think she's given a tattoo since.

I think this is the Saoirser tattoo.

I'm a big fan of the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,

and I was making this sleeve and getting tattoos

in significant places that I was traveling.

So I got, you know, the Heinz ketchup in Pittsburgh

and the koala in Australia.

I was like, What do I get for Philly?

And I got Prince.

[slow hiphop music]

I was on tour with Brixton, their four lads,

and we were on tour, and in Great Britain,

there's like a phrase of when you're going out drinking

with the lads, your lads on tour.

And I was like, Oh, we're lads on tour.

We should get lads on tour tattooed.

Yeah, it's about as basic as it can be, but yeah.

[slow music]

I was playing Wembley Stadium.

Wembley Stadium is the biggest stadium

that we have in the UK.

I didn't know I would be playing a stadium ever.

I didn't even think I'd be playing arenas.

I thought I was a theater artist.

And I sold out three Wembleys in 2015 for the first time.

The Wembley is the home of English football.

The crest of English football is three lions.

So I wanted to get something connected with that.

I still think it's the biggest achievement of my life,

playing Wembley Stadium.

So, I got plus, multiply, divide and subtract

tattooed around my wrist.

I had the plan of the mathematics from, like, 2010.

In my head, that was the plan of the albums

that I was gonna do.

Plus, Multiply, Divide and Subtract.

Equals came in in there a bit later.

But the next symbols have been on my arm for 13 years

as well, and I start that series next year.

I guess that's kind of prison break of me, isn't it?

Clues.

Most painful tattoo by far was Sagrada Familia.

Eight hours of just, like, you know,

they do the tattoo needle with like 20 needles

and it's just scraping in.

It was grim.

Like, grim.

I think tattoos hurt more the more you get.

Like, your first one.

I remember getting this and being like,

Oh, that wasn't that bad.

And I feel the older I'm getting,

maybe it's just 'cause I'm getting older,

but someone said it's the more you get tattoos

that your body is saying,

Please stop doing this.

And the more you get it, the more it's saying,

Please just fucking stop doing this.