Cherry Seaborn was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in 2022 while pregnant with the couple’s second daughter.

Ed Sheeran and Cherry Seaborn in London on Feb. 8, 2022.Credit: JMEnternational/Getty

Ed Sheeran is reflecting on his wife’s cancer journey.

The “Thinking Out Loud” musician said the worst period of his life was when his spouse, Cherry Seaborn, revealed her cancer diagnosis.

“[The] day that Cherry rung me up and said she had cancer, that was probably the worst day,” Sheeran said on Friends Keep Secrets, a new podcast hosted by Benny Blanco, Lil Dicky, and Kristin Batalucco.

Ed Sheeran performs in New York City on Dec. 12, 2025.Kevin Mazur/Getty

Sheeran also noted that two of his friends, music businessman Jamal Edwards and cricketer Shane Warne, died unexpectedly around the same time. “That was probably the worst week, ’cause Jamal died that week as well, and then we went straight into a court case,” he recalled. “Oh, and then Shane died.”

“She had the operation,” he said of Seaborn. “She was pregnant at the time. That was why it was difficult. She had the operation to remove the tumor after she’d given birth to our second child and thankfully — touch wood — totally fine. But it was f—in’ scary.”

When Batalucco asked how Seaborn was holding up, Sheeran said his wife is “fine” now.

Ed Sheeran and Cherry Seaborn in New York City on May 6, 2024.Kevin Mazur/MG24/Getty

Sheeran added that his wife’s diagnosis, combined with his friends’ sudden deaths, made his 2022 “Shape of You” copyright infringement lawsuit feel unimportant by comparison.

“Everything was building to that for like eight years, and then suddenly when you’re in the courtroom, it didn’t really matter,” he said. “I built it up in my mind and then because all those heavy life things happened, as soon as I was in the courtroom, I was like, ‘I don’t actually care about the outcome of this’ — ’cause it’s so small compared to [everything else].”

Sheeran and Seaborn were friends in their youth but lost touch when the former rose to fame. They reconnected in 2015 and married in 2018. The couple welcomed their first daughter, Lyra Antarctica, in 2020, and had their second daughter, Jupiter, in 2022.

Seaborn discussed the impact of her cancer in Sheeran’s 2023 Disney+ documentary series, Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All. “Got diagnosed with cancer at the start of the year, which was like a massive s—ter, but it made me massively reflect on our mortality — like we’re all completely human,” she said. “This whole year I’ve been thinking, ‘Oh, if I died, what’s people’s perception of me?’ Like, what do you leave behind?”

“It was super gnarly,” Seaborn added. “It was horrible.”

Later in the series, Seaborn expressed her optimism after a follow-up appointment with her doctor after the tumor had been removed. “We saw the surgeon, he looked at the scans, and it all looks good,” she said. “Lymph nodes are all calmed down and everything. So that was amazing. It was massive for us, actually.”

Seaborn added a positive note, detailing how her health scare inspired a wave of creative output from her husband.

“At the start of February, we had the diagnosis of the tumor,” Seaborn recalled, “and the day after, Ed went down into the basement and wrote seven songs in like four hours.”