Ed Sheeran shares hilarious reason why he gave ‘Love Yourself’ to Justin Bieber

Ed Sheeran surprised his fans after opening up on why he gave away the hit song ‘Love Yourself’ to Justin Bieber.

During his concert at Hard Rock Live on at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on May 3, Ed Sheeran shared the surprising reason behind giving away the chart-topping hit ‘Love Yourself.’

It turns out, his friends didn’t rate the song as highly as he did. “This is a song when I was writing ‘Divide’ I was writing a lot of songs about a lot of different things, and I wrote this song and honestly, I played it to people and they went, ‘Meh,'” Sheeran chuckled.

The renowned British singer-songwriter then recounted that when he played it for Justin Bieber, the pop star expressed interest in adding it to his repertoire. “I went, ‘Cool, have it,’ and then it got very big,” he said, laughing.

‘Love Yourself’ ultimately became a huge hit, as it secured the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End list in 2016. This made Bieber the youngest musician with a No. 1 track on the chart in the publication’s history.

Sheeran added that the song’s success prompted his friends to ask why he’d given it away in the first place. “‘You told me it wasn’t good,'” the Grammy-winner recalled saying, as he laughed with the crowd.

He then told his fans that the good thing about writing a song is that you can “always play it,” before performing ‘Love Yourself’ for the Hard Rock Live concertgoers.

On Friday, the ‘Afterglow’ singer shared that he’s working on new music, but doesn’t plan to release anything for a while. “Nothing’s going to come out this year. I’m enjoying being on tour,” he told People.

“I released two records on tour last year, and it’s quite a lot to be on tour and releasing records. So, I’ve made the new music, and I’m just going to sit on it for a bit.”