Ed Sheeran says ‘all areas’ of London are ‘sketchy’ and ‘dangerous’

Ed Sheeran has branded the whole of London ‘sketchy’ and ‘dangerous’.

The artist lives on a vast £3.75million estate in Suffolk, but reportedly owns 22 properties in London, including two in Battersea, three in Whitechapel and two in Covent Garden, most of which he rents out.

Despite this, he advised avoiding “any area” if you want to avoid being robbed.

The topic came up in an interview with American podcaster Theo Von, who asked him what the most dangerous place in the UK is.

“Here? I’d say every area of ​​London. Literally, every area is sketchy,” Sheeran replied.

“I think you can’t be anywhere. It’s not like a segregated city. No, I mean the nice neighborhoods are sketchy, the bad neighborhoods are sketchy, but you just don’t do stupid shit.

“If you’re walking around with, I don’t know, a Louis Vuitton duffel bag and a 200 grand watch, you’re going to get robbed. Just don’t do it.”

In the same conversation, Ed Sheeran slammed the Conservative government over its cuts to the arts.

He said: “I have been involved in music in secondary schools for seven years because in my area, in 2017/2018, my old music teacher came to me and said: ‘Look, the government that is in charge now does not value art at all… art, drama, music.’ And they have stopped all funding for general secondary schools.

“So my music teacher came to me and said, I think they should share between art, music and drama, about £700 a year for all three subjects. So I started funding that at my local grammar school. And then you saw a huge increase in kids doing production, kids doing songwriting, kids doing this.”

Sheeran added: “I built a recording studio there. There’s a lot of good instruments that aren’t broken and you can just see the school getting better at music. So then I started doing that in the area where I’m from. And we’ve now changed it to doing it nationally. And I’m now visiting more high schools and places that really need music funding.

“And you also see what a difference it makes. Because I’m not an academic and in the real world I would be seen as stupid, but I excelled in music and therefore people think I’m good at something.”

The singer-songwriter was recently confirmed as the most played artist of 2023, leaving behind his main competitor Taylor Swift.

Last week he performed ‘Work Song’ at Pinkpop together with Hozier.