Back in April 2025, pop star Katy Perry made headlines when she joined journalist Gayle King, bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and host Lauren Sanchez aboard the Blue Origin space flight. Marking the first all-female crew since the ’60s, their journey to the edge of space took a little more than 10 minutes. The entire mission (and Perry’s participation in it) polarized audiences, but nonetheless, the “Firework” star holds the distinction of becoming the first pop star to sing in space. Apparently, Ed Sheeran had the opportunity to beat her to the punch, but declined.
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Ed Sheeran Reveals Space Gig Offer
Since debuting in 2011 with his first album Plus, Ed Sheeran has collected four Grammy Awards and set a record for the highest-grossing tour of all time. During a conversation this week with BBC Radio 2’s Scott Mills, the “Thinking Out Loud” hitmaker, 34, revealed that he could have bolstered that already impressive resume when he got an opportunity to perform “the first gig in space.”
However, Sheeran didn’t need much time to think that one over, admitting that space travel “terrifies me.”
“Ah, mate, I ain’t doing it,” he told Mills. “I’ve got kids. Like, I’m not going to risk that. For what, like, a Guinness World Record something or other? I’m not gonna risk my kids not having a dad.”
The “Shape of You” crooner says he may reconsider once space is no longer considered novel territory. “I want to go to space when it’s like flying to France and 40,000 people have done it, and you can just book it online,” Sheeran said. “I don’t want to be a guinea pig for that, because it still is dangerous… There’s places on this planet I would far rather go to than space.”
[RELATED: Ed Sheeran’s Rise to Fame Was Followed by Death Threats, According to the Singer Himself]
Finding Work-Life Balance
Turning down space travel isn’t the only way that marriage and fatherhood have impacted Ed Sheeran’s career. In an interview published Sept. 17 by the Sun, the Grammy winner recalled the “intensely unhappy” days of early stardom.
“I had no balance, I was just work, work, work,” Sheeran said. “And yes, everything was hyper- successful, but it was hyper-successful because I had no personal life at all. Work was everything.”
That has changed since his 2019 marriage to childhood friend Cherry Seaborn. The couple now share two daughters, Lyra, 5, and 3-year-old Jupiter.
“I think finding that balance with getting married, having a family, living around my friends . . . Being able to spend time with my friends and family — that has now become 70 percent of my life, and work is like 30 per cent,” he said. “Before, it was 100 percent and zero anything else.”
Featured image by Rich Fury/Getty Images for TikTok
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