Ed Sheeran Reveals ‘Four-Hour’ Talk with Taylor Swift Amid Engagement Rumors

Ed Sheeran has insisted he and Taylor Swift spoke for four hours – after he learned of her engagement to Travis Kelce on social media.

The two pop stars have been close friends for 11 years, with Swift, 35, even referring to Sheeran, 34, at one point as her ‘second brother.’ 

However when she announced her engagement on Instagram this August, Sheeran – who does not have a cellphone – only found out along with the rest of the public.

It was then reported their bond had grown ‘strained,’ after Swift dropped her album The Life of a Showgirl in September so close to his own new release Play.

Now, however, Sheeran has maintained that he saw Swift a week after she accepted Kelce’s proposal and the pair enjoyed an hours-long ‘catch-up.’ 

‘I’m not self-conscious about my relationship with her,’ the Castle on a Hill hitmaker maintained in a new interview with Access Hollywood. 

‘We’ve been friends for very, very many years. We’re super close and we see each other when we see each other, and when we see each other, we lock back into where we left off,’ the Azizam singer explained further.

‘My way of viewing it is like, me and Taylor are mates and I will see her. And I saw her a week after that happened, so I did that interview and then I saw her and you talk in person,’ said Sheeran, who hails from Halifax.

Referring to social media and having a cellphone, he said: ‘I kind of feel like being in touch with everyone, sort of you lose actual human connection.’

His technologically detached life has provided him with a different outcome, such that ‘when I saw Taylor we had like a four-hour catch-up and it’s life stuff rather than, like, I don’t know, you know what I mean?’

Sheeran’s disclosure comes a month after the Daily Mail exclusively reported his relationship with Swift has been ‘strained’ of late, after the American singer released her latest blockbuster album so close to Sheeran’s own new offering.

Despite their close friendship, Sheeran was left in the dark about the release date of Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl, which shot to the top of the album charts.

In May, the British chart-topper announced that he was to release his eighth studio album, Play, on September 12.

Months later, in August, Swift announced that she would also be releasing her own new collection on October 3, just weeks after Sheeran.

A music industry source said: ‘Ed takes these things really seriously, and carefully plans his album releases. He announced his album with four months’ notice, but then Taylor announced hers for just two weeks after.

‘It left his team scrabbling to get as much attention before hers dropped. He was very much put out and understandably peeved.’

‘It is not the first time that Taylor has done something like this. She’s got form.’

Initially, Sheeran’s album rose to the No1 during the week of its release, but it then fell out of the top ten as Swift’s new album seized the top spot.

Last year, the Shake It Off singer was criticized for ‘chart blocking’ when she released new album variants, exclusive to the UK, the week Charli xcx released her Brat album. 

Swift’s move blocked Charli from the top spot of the albums chart, thereby maintaining her own at No1 spot for her The Tortured Poets Department album.

She also saw off Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft album, which threatened Swift’s run at the top of the US charts. As Eilish looked close to taking the top spot, Swift released three new digital album download variants and a new CD version of her album. 

Each variant contained a new song exclusive only to that version of the album, encouraging devoted fans to buy every new version and keep Swift at the top of the charts.

Sheeran has previously spoken about how he times his album releases. He said in 2017: ‘Everyone I was scared of releasing albums around me released them all last year – people like Beyonce and The Weeknd and Bruno Mars. 

‘Taylor [Swift] isn’t going to be releasing until probably the end of this year – Christmas is the smartest time to release because that’s when everyone buys records.’

The pair have been friends for over a decade after collaborating on their 2012 single Everything Has Changed, and Sheeran later supported her on tour. 

The duo later lived in Nashville where they cemented their friendships with Sheeran saying ‘we literally spent almost every single day with her for about six months’.

A source said they had last met at Selena Gomez’s California wedding on September 27, where they both gave speeches, but the topic of album release dates was not discussed.

It comes as Swift revealed that she didn’t tell her British ‘bestie’ about her engagement to American footballer Travis Kelce, with Sheeran instead finding out on Instagram.

She admitted she ‘forgot to call Ed’ to tell him the happy news before she told her 282 million Instagram followers.

She said: ‘This is one of my absolute favourite people on the planet and then when the news came out I was like, ‘Oh my god! We forgot to call Ed!’

Ed Sheeran’s representatives were contacted for comment.