Ed Sheeran Speaks Out About Toxic Culture Surrounding American Award Shows

Ed Sheeran has established himself as a big name in the international pop scene and has 117 awards to his name. The British singer-songwriter also recently performed at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards, but did not have very positive things to say about the experience.

Sheeran shared his feelings with radio host Julia on her Audacy segment “The Julia Show” on Tuesday. He made a pretty big statement by saying that the general sentiment in the room is that of “resentment and hatred.”

The room is filled with resentment and hatred toward everyone else and it’s quite an uncomfortable atmosphere. All the artists are sweet people, but they’re, like, surrounded by entourages that want them to win, too, so it’s one artist surrounded by 10 people and another artist surrounded by 10 people and everyone is kind of giving each other the side-eye.

Sheeran also clarified that “it’s nothing to do with MTV or the award show,” explaining that the pervading sense of aggressive competition is characteristic of most mainstream American entertainment awards. He cited the Grammys, AMAs and Billboards as other examples of this problem.

Sheeran said that he’s also discussed these feelings with his fellow artists. They agree that the atmosphere is “not nice” and “really, really horrible” and these artists “felt really depressed afterward.”

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