On this week’s episode of The Jonathan Ross Show Jonathan is joined by singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran in his only UK TV interview with an exclusive performance of new single Eyes Closed. Plus, Jonathan chats with singer Michael Bublé, Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe, musician-turned-actress Lily Allen and comedian Desiree Burch.
Discussing his latest album Subtract singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran tells Jonathan of writing it:
“I had a load of stuff happen at the beginning of last year… I made another album over the course of a decade, but then some stuff happened to me at the beginning of last year and I wrote this while that was happening and put the other one to the side. It’s kind of happened in a backwards way.”
Opening up about what was going on, Ed explains:
“I feel like, this is the one thing about having adult stuff happen to you, is you realise that everyone else is going through exactly the same thing and I didn’t really talk to anyone about it… You never know what’s going on with someone.”
He continues: “I watched Robbie Williams, he did a documentary, I remember watching it on TV and his rise to fame - obviously he was in Take That - but his solo career, I felt, was quite similar to me, in terms of trajectory and the venues he was doing and what the albums were doing and how big it got and how isolated it got, and how he had a problem with his weight, he had a problem with drugs, he had a problem with alcohol. I was watching this thing being like, ‘Oh man he’s gone through exactly what I’ve just gone through.’”
Ed says: “I emailed him and said, ‘Your documentary made me feel less isolated.’ And he was like, ‘Ironically that email just made me feel less isolated.’ It’s just good to talk about things.”
Speaking about how Sir Elton John is a good friend, Ed adds: “He’s done everything, good and bad. He’s someone with a wealth of experience. He normalises these things. I find Elton a fantastic person and I’m honoured to be in his sphere.”
Discussing the loss of his friend Jamal Edwards, Ed explains of how they first met: “I was this struggling up and coming musician wanting anyone to take me seriously and no-one was taking me seriously. I was fat, scraggly ginger hair, I had a tiny guitar and I used to rap and beatbox and everyone kind of saw me as a joke. Jamal put me on his channel, which at the time on YouTube was the coolest channel to be on, and as soon as he put me on everything started to fall into place.”
Ed says: “The day he passed away we were meant to be shooting a music video. 31 [he was when he died].” Asked when he last spoke to him before he died, Ed said: “Four hours, probably.”
He continues: “Grief is a very solitary thing, you think you’re the only one going through it, but obviously lots of people understand stuff. I felt after Jamal’s death everyone rallies around people and then after a week it kind of goes and you’re meant to get back to normal life. Grief is something you live with… it has to be something you embrace in a way.”
Ed adds: “I’ve got amazing memories of him that make me happy but also sad at the same time.”
Discussing why he started seeing a therapist, Ed says: “It was a bunch of stuff. My wife had a health scare complication and then Jamal died and then I went straight into a court case. Then I had another friend die while in the court case. I’ve always had ups and downs in my career. It’s the English thing isn’t it, ‘keep calm and carry on’. I feel like therapy in America is far more accepted, whereas here no-one really talks about it.
“I felt ashamed even thinking about going to do it. We just had a really, really low three months and my wife talked me into going into therapy. I started doing it. It’s not like a button you press and you go, ‘I’m automatically ok’, but it definitely helps. But I would recommend if anyone’s having real lows. Just speaking to someone who is paid to hear you out and normalise it and be like, ‘It’s ok to think like that.’
“I’m in a super privileged position in my career and life and if I speak to my friends and say this is going on and I feel like this usually the answer is… money can’t bring back your dead mate, you know.”
Ed continues: “I don’t want to come on TV and just be ‘woe is me’, I understand that. Whatever position you’re in, speaking to someone is way better than bottling it up. I go once a week. Some weeks it’s just complaining about something really insignificant and some weeks it’s digging into heavier stuff. It’s just good to talk. Before I would just not talk to anyone and keep it all bottled up and that’s when you get lower and lower and lower.”
Explaining how new track Eyes Closed is about Jamal, Ed says: “We both lived in the same area of London and I found after he passed away everywhere I went I thought I’d see him, because it was all the places we went to. The song is essentially that.”
Asked if it’s difficult to perform he says: “It’s different now it’s out. I find songs are so personal when you write them and they belong to you. The first time I ever played it I did a gig in Union Chapel I cried when I was introducing it, I cried during it and I cried after it. Because the song still belonged to me, it was still my story.”
Explaining the meaning behind another track on the album, Ed says of No Strings: “2022 was a year of lots of things happening with me and my family and I sort of said to my wife, ‘If we can get through this, it’s a breeze from here. Anything can happen from here and we’re good.’”
Later, Jonathan’s guests are discussing whether they have been approached for reality TV shows before. Ed says: “The one I would do is probably I’m A Celebrity… it looks quite fun. Genuinely. It looks fun. If I had time off, you go in a jungle with a bunch of people you sort of know… I’m not going to do it… I do like the idea of it.”
Joining by video call from Australia, actor Russell Crowe responds to speculation he’s in talks for Gladiator 2.
He says: “I think when they’re shooting in the colosseum and stuff, I’ll be lying like 6ft underground… you won’t see me, but I’ll be there beneath the ground…”
He adds: “I’ve had a couple of dinners with Ridley [Scott] since he embarked on this, we haven’t really talked about what he’s doing. But no, I’m not involved. Maximus has departed the world…”
Discussing filming in Rome for his latest film The Pope’s Exorcist Russell admits it was actually his first time shooting there: “The funny thing is, a lot of people assume I’ve done a lot of filming in Rome… we shot ‘the other gig’ [Gladiator] in London and then Morocco. The colosseum for us was in Malta. This film was my first time ever shooting in the city of Rome.”
But Russell did find his previous role helped get him out of some trouble after the local authorities had closed a major bridge for them, but filming had overrun: “They didn’t say anything. I thought they’d come up to us hands waving… [but] they were cool about it. And then when it was finished I was like, ‘Thanks very much for keeping the bridge open’ and this guy was like, ‘No problem, Maximus.’”
Musician-turned-actress Lily Allen discusses why she originally undertook 2:22 A Ghost Story on stage, admitting: “I kind of took this job on because I was full of self-hatred at the time. [I was telling myself] ‘This will be a disaster, I’ll hate it, the reviews will be horrendous’ and I’ll be able to be like, ‘Yes you are a piece of s***’. But actually it was really brilliant and it sold out. I got an Olivier nomination!”
She admits: “It was probably the most scary thing I’ve ever done.”
Lily is starring in a new Sky series Dreamland. But speaking about returning to the stage at Glastonbury and performing with Olivia Rodrigo, Lily says it took her kids by surprise: “I was really nervous. I haven’t done it in a long time, I haven’t done it sober. I don’t really know what I was expecting. It was really, really amazing. People went absolutely ballistic. I was really overwhelmed. My kids were like, ‘What’s going on?’ Olivia is their idol. People were screaming louder for me than her at some points. I got off stage they didn’t really want to talk to me. In the car on the way back, Marnie looked at me, and went, ‘Are you kind of popular then?’ She was like, ‘What, in the charts?’ And I was like, ‘Yes…’”
She adds of whether she plays her own music at home: “Lily Allen is banned in our house. You’re not allowed to. Absolutely not. I don’t really like it that much. I liked it when I wrote it.”
Asked if she’ll record again, Lily says after Glastonbury she did start recording: “It sparked something in me. It is quite fun, I am quite good at that. I booked in five weeks in the studio just before Christmas last year. And, it was awful. Nothing really came and everything felt really contrived. It was just not very good. So I'm not going to put any of that out. Maybe one day, we’ll see.”
Speaking about how she met her husband, Stranger Things star David Harbour, Lily says: “On a dating app, called Raya. It was the first time I’d been on this dating app. I was scrolling through and landed on David’s profile and pressed accept. I didn’t know who he was. I thought he was just like a sexy policeman from a reality TV Show. He was wearing a policeman’s uniform. It was a still from Stranger Things. I’d never seen Stranger Things.”
“I don’t even know what I was looking for. It was just something to do on holiday, swiping, it’s a bit of fun. When I met him I didn’t think it was going to go anywhere. He was here filming Black Widow. He was only going to be here for a couple of months. And then it did [go somewhere].”
She adds of their attraction: “I’d say it was pretty instant actually. He was sitting underneath a clock. It was a little bit like that moment in Titanic, when he [Jack] turns around under the clock. It was a little bit like that for me.”
Singer Michael Bublé talks about his love for the UK saying: “You’re my people. I get to be this, me. I don’t have to pretend. I don’t have to be careful or politically correct. You guys are amazing.”
Giving him a joking warning about being cancelled, Ed says: “You do…”
Michael admits: “I didn’t realise that…”
Of other countries he loves to perform in, Michael adds: “I love Germany. I love the Germans. They’re hilarious. They’re funny people, they’re dry.”
As talk turns to fans having his face tattooed on them, Michael says: “It’s a good feeling, it’s kinda cool when someone wants to put you on their skin forever.”
Asked who in the world of music he’d have tattooed on him he says: “Lewis Capaldi.”
Michael also discusses ambitions to act saying: “Yeah, for sure. I think it’s about time. I’m serious. It’s an extension of what we do. As artists, every night we go on stage, there’s a character that we play, a superhero that we become. There’s a great sense of fulfilment in expressing yourself in that way.
“I have been offered roles to go and do things… it was always the same part. ‘You’re a singer…’ It was like the romantic comedy. That would be fun, but I wanted to take a stab at something… I love my life, I love what I do and I love who I do it for. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do next, but something cool. Maybe a TV chat show.”
Speaking about her ambitions comedian Desiree Burch says: “I do have a Sky short coming out called Diane From Accounts. I’ll likely be touring in 2024. Right now, I’m at home with my man. I’m being in love and enjoying it.”
Summing up her voiceover on Netflix dating show Too Hot To Handle she says: “Beauty is a currency and these people are rich with it!”
Desiree also talks about being an ordained minister: “I’ve married five separate couples. Three of them are still together! The one that got divorced, I was so mad. Why didn’t you call me first?!”
At the end of the show, in a UK TV exclusive Ed Sheeran performs his brand new single Eyes Closed.
THE JONATHAN ROSS SHOW, SATURDAY AT 21.40PM ON ITV1 AND ITVX