Ed Sheeran Reveals the Real Reason Queen Elizabeth is Smiling in Their Photo Together

Ed Sheeran may appear chummy with Queen Elizabeth, but there’s always a story behind the photograph.

The music star, 31, appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert this week, where he reflected on the first time he met the history-making monarch, who died on Sept. 8.

“This is a fun picture because she was smiling when she met me. That was really, really early stages of my career. I had released, like, one hit single, and I was playing her Jubilee,” Sheeran said about the 2012 photo. “But I was next to a really famous comedian who like, cracked a joke while she was shaking my hand. So I’ve got this picture of her delighted to see me.”

The photo was from Sheeran’s performance at the Queen’s Jubilee in 2012 after Sheeran had seen success with his song “The A Team.” When he was introduced to Queen Elizabeth, she initially didn’t have much of a reaction — as he recalls not being a notable figure yet at the time — but her smile appeared once she heard a joke. “And that’s the picture,” the singer-songwriter said.

As Sheeran told Colbert, it was her previous Golden Jubilee in 2002 that inspired him to become a performing musician. When he was just 11, Sheeran saw a performance of Eric Clapton at the event on television and knew he wanted to emulate him.

“Eric Clapton comes on and does the first opening bit of ‘Layla.’ I’m like, ‘What is that?’ ” Sheeran recalled. “And he finishes the song, and I knew in that instant, I was like, ‘I want to be that. I want to have a guitar, and I want to sing on stage.’ And 10 years later, I’m playing the same thing, and I just played the one 10 years on from that as well.”

Back in June, Sheeran celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s historic 70 years on the throne during the Platinum Jubilee Pageant. He performed his 2017 single “Perfect” as a video montage featuring Her Majesty and Prince Philip, who died a year earlier, was shown to the crowd.

“It’s very rare you get days like this to feel patriotic,” Sheeran said at the event while looking out into the crowd. “I think the last time was the Euros final when you actually felt it in the city. It’s really, really nice.”

Following the monarch’s death, the musician paid tribute to the Queen at a show in Munich, Germany, on Sept. 10, opening up about how it felt to be asked to play the Diamond Jubilee. “I found it this weird full circle moment that I picked up a guitar, 10 years before, then 10 years later I was playing the exact event,” Sheeran said.

“There’s not many times in your life where you do things and you’re like, ‘This is a nice historic moment.’ I feel like I’m doing something I can look back on in 50 years and be like, ‘That was cool that I did that.’ So when the Queen passed away this week, I was thinking about what to say.. and I wanted to say I wouldn’t have picked up guitar had it not been for the Golden Jubilee.”