Popular singer Ed Sheeran and his wife, Cherry Seaborn recently spoke openly about her cancer diagnosis. In the Disney+ documentary, Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All, the GRAMMY-winning singer breaks down the personal and intimate events in 2022 that inspired him to complete his album, Subtract.
Ed Sheeran reveals it impacted his marriage
Throughout the limited docuseries, which is broken down into four parts, Love, Loss, Focus and Balance, Sheeran and Seaborn open up about her cancer diagnosis and the effects it has had in their relationship.
In episode one, Seaborn — who has remained largely out of the spotlight, details the diagnosis. Seaborn reveals that the doctors found a tumor in her arm when she was six months pregnant.
During a date night at a painting studio, Seaborn shares why the diagnosis inspired her to take part in the documentary. She said[ ET Online]:
“I got diagnosed with cancer at the start of the year which was a massive sh*tter,” she says. “It made me massively reflect on our mortality. I would never agree to do anything like this, but it made me think, ‘Oh, if I died, what’s people’s perception of me? What do you leave behind?'”
Seaborn adds:
“For Ed, the whole point is he wants to say to people, ‘I’m not just this music machine. I’m not just this robot that tries to get No. 1. I’m a father, I’m a son, I’m a friend.’ It wasn’t until this year when I was like, ‘I might die.'”
Sheeran gets serious and emotional in the moment as he tells his wife that she is downplaying the diagnosis.
“It was horrible,” the “Shape of You” singer says.
Further into the episode, Sheeran notes how he tried to convince himself that everything would be OK, but it wasn’t.
“I kept saying to you that it was just a lump and not to worry,” he tells his wife. “I remember rehearsing and getting a call from Cherry. The doctor was basically like, ‘This is bad.'”
The couple adds that after months of looking at treatment plans and finding out that Seaborn’s diagnosis was “much less severe” than what they were initially told, Seaborn was able to have her baby, and have a successful surgery shortly thereafter.
Meanwhile, in the documentary, Sheeran reflects on how traumatic events kept happening back to back — from his wife’s cancer diagnosis, to the death of his best friend, Jamal Edwards, and the 3-week court case where he was accused of plagiarizing his hit, “Shape of You.”
During the case — which he won — he could only focus on his wife.
“I’m sat in this courtroom with people shouting at me from all different angles, and in my head I’m like, ‘I hope Cherry’s all right,'” he recalls. “‘I could lose this court case and life goes on, but life doesn’t really go on if the person you love the most isn’t in it.'”
