Ed Sheeran is enjoying the time he gets to be a father to his 1-year-old daughter, Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran, so much so that parenting has allowed him to find a new purpose outside of his music career. During his Wednesday (Dec. 8) appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Sheeran shared his feelings on fatherhood and how his daughter inspires him.
“I really love being a dad. I started off my job being my hobby, and therefore I did it every day, and then one day I got paid for it and then it became my job. But then I did my hobby every day, but it was also my job, and then when I had time off, I would still do it,” Sheeran explained. “I’d stop tour and go into the studio. And then I stopped studio and go back on tour because I love tour, and I just found I didn’t have any purpose outside of that, because when I was giving myself fixed time off of no work, I wasn’t doing anything I enjoyed because I love music. But this has actually given me purpose and something in life that is actually more important than my job.”
The 29-year-old singer shared that he and wife Cherry Seaborn safely welcomed their daughter Lyra in September 2020. “We are completely in love with her,” Sheeran wrote in an Instagram post announcing the news, and added that he and Seaborn were on “cloud nine” after becoming parents to their little girl.
Sheeran also took a moment during his Ellen appearance to discuss his recent album = (equals) — which charted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 following its November release — and noted that the making of the album was slightly difficult for him.
“It was a lot of work putting into this album. It was about four years of crisis moments of ‘this is complete rubbish and I need to redo it,’ so I’m just happy it’s out so I can move on to the next thing,” he told the talk show host. “‘Bad Habits’ is a song I really didn’t know how it was going to go. I find when I’m putting out a first single, it always has to be a risk and you always have to feel uncomfortable putting it out/”
Watch Sheeran on Ellen below.