Ed Sheeran insists he didn't 'turn down' King's coronation concert

Ed Sheeran has revealed Buckingham Palace "never" asked him to perform at Sunday's coronation concert, despite claims that he declined the opportunity to do so.

A starry line-up of musicians – including boyband Take That and Katy Perry – are scheduled to take the stage at Windsor Castle to celebrate the crowning of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

Defending his absence while on SiriusXM's The Morning Mash Up show, Sheeran said: "I want to clear something up actually, because there was loads of stuff in the press that I turned down the coronation, and no-one ever asked me ever.

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"I assume if they went online and went, 'What's Ed doing on May 6th?' They would've been like, 'Oh, he's playing in Dallas.' I think that's what happened, but obviously, [the] press had the negative story of loads of people turning down the coronation.

"But I never ever turned it down. I'm excited to tune [in]. It's historic."

Sheeran played an impromptu gig on a New York street on Friday. A lively scene erupted in the city's SoHo area, where Sheeran played his latest single Boat from atop a parked vehicle in front of an adoring crowd.

The street concert came a day after he won a copyright case over allegations that he plagiarised Marvin Gaye's 1973 classic Let's Get it On.

Read more: Ed Sheeran copyright issues: How many lawsuits has the singer faced over his music?

In a statement, Sheeran said: "I'm obviously very happy with the outcome of the case. It looks like I'm not having to retire from my day job after all.

"At the same time, I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all. We've spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords, which are also different and are used by songwriters every day, all over the world.

"These chords are common building blocks, which were used to create music long before Let's Get it On was written and will be used to make music long after we are all gone. They are in a songwriter's alphabet, our toolkit, and should be there for all of us to use."

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