During his recent Loop Tour stop at Sydney's Accor Stadium, the 34-year-old singer opened up to fans about the fallout from his 2015 Marvin Gaye copyright lawsuit - which ended in his favour as the court ruled he did not copy Let's Get It On - explaining that the legal battle changed the way he communicates forever.
"In the last 10 years, if you've seen my name in the news it might be related to a lawsuit." he told the audience.
"I got sued for a song by someone else who said I'd stolen their song, and the only thing I could do, because I hadn't done it, was take it to court and prove that I hadn't done it."
As part of the process, Sheeran was required to hand over his electronic devices so investigators could comb through messages and files.
"All I'll say is that I'm glad there's nothing weird on them, you know," he said.
The ordeal led to a major lifestyle shift. Sheeran revealed he hasn't owned a mobile phone since the lawsuit was filed, saying he originally switched it off during his 2015 Australian tour — and never turned it back on.
"I remember at the end of that tour thinking, 'I do not want to use a mobile phone again.' I moved to email and I've used email since then," he said.
When the device was later requested as evidence, powering it up felt like stepping into a time capsule.
"I opened it again for this lawsuit and it was like going through a time machine right back to 2015 — and even to 2007, when I first started texting on that number. It proper spun me out. I was frozen in time," he said.
It ended up inspiring Old Phone, a track from his upcoming 2025 album Play, which Sheeran performed live for the stadium audience.
He explained that turning difficult moments into music has always been his way of processing life.
"I find whenever anything negative happens, I write a song about it and it somehow makes sense of that bad thing," he said.
"And it also works with something good that happens — I write a song about it. Any song you hear of mine is basically like two‑minute extremities. Either I feel a lot of this or I feel a lot of this. I find when the bad days happen, good songs come from it."
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