Ed Sheeran is the latest Rolling Stone cover star ahead of his new album, Subtract, which drops on May 5th.

The singer-songwriter’s accompanying interview is written from a deprecating angle, but Sheeran takes it all in stride and shares some truly iconic responses to his online critics.

After hearing that someone on Twitter accused him of making  “sex anthems for boring people,” Sheeran only took “a millisecond” before responding, “150 million boring people, by the way,” referring to his album sales and massive success.

Elsewhere in the interview, Sheeran shared, “I spent so long with people laughing about me making music. Everyone saw me as a joke, and no one thought I could do it… And I think that’s still the drive. There’s still this need to prove myself. And I’m still kind of not taken seriously. If you were to speak to any sort of muso, ‘Oh, I love my left-of-centre music,’ I’m the punchline to what bad pop music is.”

However, he decided to stop caring about what people say about his music a long time ago. “I mean, mate, when I wrote ‘Perfect’ and ‘Thinking Out Loud,’ I remember being like, ‘Oh, these are a bit cheesy,’ ” he told the magazine.

“But at the time being like, ‘I don’t know if I care.’ And they became the biggest ballads in the world that year. And you’re like, ‘Well, people must connect with cheese, then!’ ” Sheeran also hilariously addressed some of the memes people make about him online.

“I think I’m quite meme-able. Have you seen the meme of me when I’m queuing up at a record store in my own T-shirt with a bag that says “÷” on it? And it says, ‘Why does Ed Sheeran look like he’s queuing up to meet Ed Sheeran?’ I think it’s because I am quite quote-unquote ‘ordinary-looking.’

I look like someone’s older brother’s mate who came back from college and works in a pizza shop.”

 

 
 
 
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