From the Grammys to Game of Thrones, Ed Sheeran’s year is shaping up to be a big one. The “Shape of You” singer-songwriter, currently sitting pretty at the top of the Billboard 200 with his new album ÷ (Divide), will be making a guest appearance on the next season of HBO’s epic fantasy drama.
Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss revealed the season 7 casting news Sunday (March 12) at a SXSW panel moderated by Game of Thrones stars Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“For years, we tried to get Ed Sheeran on the show to surprise Maisie, and this year we finally did it,” Benioff said. His statement was confirmed by an HBO spokeswoman, though no further details about Sheeran’s role were given. The HBO hit is set for two more abbreviated seasons.
“Guess the cats out the bag,” Sheeran tweeted after his guest slot was announced.
This nugget isn’t the biggest news of the day for Sheeran, though; the Billboard 200 rankings were announced Sunday (March 12), with his ÷ album earning an impressive 451,000 equivalent album units (322,000 of those in traditional album sales) in the week ending March 10, making it the largest week for an album on the Billboard 200 so far this year. The chart is based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).