Ed Sheeran sobs over pal Jamal's death after 'never experiencing grief before'

03 May 2023 , 10:58

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Ed Sheeran sobs over pal Jamal's death after 'never experiencing grief before'

Ed Sheeran broke down in tears while discussing his close friend Jamal Edward's death in a new series.

Music entrepreneur Jamal, who founded the music platform SBTV in 2006 which helped launch Ed's career, tragically died in February 2022 at the age of 31.

Jamal died of a cardiac arrest following a late-night alcohol and cocaine session, an inquest found last year.

Ed and Jamal were close friends and the Shape Of You singer opened up about losing him in his series, Ed Sheeran : The Sum Of It All.

He admitted that he "hadn't experienced grief and loss" until Jamal's death and said it "took over his whole life".

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Ed's wife revealed the singer wasn't able to process his death as it came weeks after her cancer diagnosis.

Ed reflected on Jamal's death in his new series (Disney Plus)

"I basically lived in his bedroom. His mum thought we were having a relationship," Ed explained.

"Jamal died in the morning. I was at his mum's house at midday. It's Caribbean culture, you go to the family home for nine days and nine nights. On the ninth night, they throw a big party.

"Grief instantly ends your youth. The funeral was like 30 people but he knows like 10,000 people."

He admitted that he "hadn't experienced grief and loss" until Jamal's death (Disney Plus)

A scene from the docuseries showed Ed attending a cookout in memory of the music entrepreneur.

He sobbed as he sat in the back of a car while thinking about celebrating Jamal's birthday without him there.

"It's still very raw. It's very real. His grave we go past it a lot it just feels so weird that he's in amongst loads of people he didn't know," Ed said.

"It's all pure sadness. It's horrible. I know everyone goes through it. It's a common thing that you can't avoid"

Ed and Jamal were close friends for years (Jamal Edwards/Instagram)

Jamal tragically died in February last year (Jamal Edwards/Instagram)

The Bad Habits singer continued: "I felt I hadn't really grown up until I experienced grief, loss. It just took over my whole life. It's just weird. I was thinking I don't want to cry in front of 78,000 people. I found myself really close at times.

"It's just mad, straight back to it. The show must go on."

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When Jamal died, Ed rushed to his mother's house to look after her and Jamal's sister Tanisha for a whole week.

"There wasn’t anything that he wasn’t sorting out and doing if we needed anything, and everybody has been so so wonderful and so supportive," Brenda previously revealed on Loose Women.

Zara Woodcock