Ed Sheeran hasn't disappeared.
In an interview with The Sun published Monday, the singer-songwriter revealed he'd recently "come off Twitter completely" after being cyber-bullied. His 19.2 million followers were upset, so on Wednesday, Sheeran addressed the "loads of Hoo-har about me quitting stuff" in an Instagram post. "I haven't quit anything," the 26-year-old "Castle on the Hill" singer wrote. "I'm just not reading anything, except Harry Potter. Hope everyone had a wonderful July 4th yo."
Sheeran further explained himself when he appeared on NBC's Today Thursday. "They made such a big deal about this. I got asked in an interview if I read negative things. I was like, 'I don't even go on Twitter and read 'em.' It's not like I've quit it; I still post on Instagram and it goes to Twitter. I'm just not going to wake up and read something and be like, 'Ugh, well that's rude,'" he said. "I don't want to choose to do that anymore. Everyone's making a huge deal out of it!"
Matt Lauer argued there are plenty of positive tweets, and Sheeran didn't disagree with him. "There is so much positivity out there. I'm just saying, as a human being, we always read the one negative one and ignore the others, and I don't want to do that. I don't know...It's just foolish to do, when there's so much love out there in the world, to look at the negative stuff," he said. "I'm just choosing not to read it. But I did see yesterday you guys had a chat about it."
"Yeah," Lauer admitted with a sly smile. "Your name came up once or twice."
In his interview with The Sun, Sheeran said he stopped reading tweets in part because of Lady Gaga's fan base. According to the musician, they wrongly misinterpreted something he'd said and assumed he was picking a fight with the pop star. Her fans "all f--king hate" him, he said, adding, "Twitter gets on a massive steam roll of assuming things and then you get in the s--t."
Gaga, whose Born This Way Foundation promotes anti-bullying, got wind of the interview and defended Sheeran on Instagram. "What an incredible talented artist I LOVE ED @edsheeran deserves all our love and respect like all humans do," she said Tuesday. "I wish all people on the internet would be positive and loving and apart of creating an online community that is kind and empowering, not hateful and mean. No reason to tear down an artist simply because they are on top. Work harder to be kinder everybody. That should be your first duty to humanity."
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