Ed Sheeran has revealed his true feeling about award shows and turns out, he’s not a big fan.
Following this Sunday’s MTV VMAs, Sheeran described the ceremonies as “horrible” and said he often leaves “feeling sad” and deflated.
Per BBC, Sheeran said, “The room is filled with resentment and hatred towards everyone else and it’s quite an uncomfortable atmosphere. It’s just lots of people wanting other people to fail and I don’t like that.”
He continued, “All the artists are sweet people, but they’re surrounded by entourages that want them to win too, so it’s one artist surrounded by ten people and another artist surrounded by ten people and everyone is kind of giving each other the side-eye.”
The 30-year-old performed his new single “Shivers” at the VMAs. He said that UK Award shows felt less competitive, saying, “Everyone gets drunk and no one really cares who wins or loses, it’s just sort of a good night out.”
Sheeran said he wasn’t the only one who felt this way: “People get the same feeling as me at those award shows. I’ve spoke[n] to people and they’re like, ‘I just felt really depressed afterwards.’ The atmosphere is just not nice… It’s a really, really horrible atmosphere to be in there. I always walk away feeling sad and I don’t like it.”
Watch Ed Sheeran perform “Shivers” at the VMAs below:
There’s a lot of ambivalence about award shows with big stars: Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Drake and The Weeknd have similarly boycotted the Grammys over the lack of recognition for black artists in the main award categories.
The last hip-hop album to win album of the year was Outkast’s Speakerboxxx / The Love Below in 2004. The Weeknd did not receive a single nomination for this year’s awards, despite having the biggest-selling single of 2020, with “Blinding Lights.”
“Look, I personally don’t care anymore,” he said about the snub. “I have three Grammys, which mean nothing to me now. I suck at giving speeches anyways. Forget awards shows.”
The singer said he said he would boycott the awards from now on. “Because of the secret committees, I will no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys,” The Weeknd said.
Frank Ocean took a similar stance, refusing to submit his music to the nomination committees in 2017, and saying the ceremony had lost its relevancy. Ocean, 33, said, “Believe the ones who’d rather watch select performances from your program on YouTube the day after because your show puts them to sleep.”