Amid mounting frustrations, British singer Ed Sheeran threatened he’d leave the music industry entirely if he were to lose an ongoing copyright lawsuit over his 2014 single Thinking Out Loud.
On Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial, Sheeran again denied that he plagiarized elements of Marvin Gaye’s soul classic Let’s Get It On.
While on the stand, Sheeran, 32, was asked by his lawyer, Ilene Farkas, what he would do if he were to lose the lawsuit.
Sheeran’s answer was simple. “If that happens, I’m done, I’m stopping,” he said.
The singer called the lawsuit “really insulting.”
“I work really hard to be where I’m at,” he told the jury.
Sheeran also appeared bothered when he was questioned by the plaintiff’s lawyer.
“You’re trying to diminish my success,” he complained about the line of questioning. “Thinking Out Loud was my first Grammy.”
He went on to say that earlier testimony from musicologist Alexander Stewart, who was hired by the plaintiffs, should be “criminal.” (Stewart told the jury on Wednesday that Thinking Out Loud and Let’s Get It On share striking similarities.)
“I don’t know why he’s allowed to be an expert,” Sheeran said.
The Shape of You singer has been in court as part of a lawsuit filed in 2017 by the heirs of a Let’s Get It On co-writer, Ed Townsend, who created the hit song alongside Gaye. The lawsuit claims Sheeran and his co-writer, Amy Wadge, knowingly plagiarized the ballad’s iconic four-chord sequence.
Sheeran earlier testified he and Wadge wrote the song collaboratively while she visited his home in England. He said while Wadge was strumming chords, he sang the brainstormed line “I’m singing out now,” which would eventually become “I’m thinking out loud,” in the song’s chorus.
Also on Tuesday, Wadge took the stand and testified that the allegations in the Townsend heir’s lawsuit are “frightening because it’s something we did not do.”
She said she used a “basic” chord progression to co-write Thinking Out Loud, as she never formally learned to play guitar. She said it was “not possible” for she and Sheeran to have infringed on copyright.
Lawyers for the Townsend heirs last week showed the jury what they said was “a smoking gun” that proved Sheeran copied Let’s Get It On — a concert video of a live mashup performance in which he sang both songs. Townsend lawyer Ben Crump said the performance was “a confession” of plagiarism.
Sheeran denied the video is proof and said it is “quite simple to weave in and out of songs” if they are in the same key. (Both Thinking Out Loud and Let’s Get It On are in the D-major key.)
“I’d be an idiot to stand on a stage in front of 20,000 people and do that,” Sheeran said of blatant plagiarism. “Most pop songs can fit over most pop songs.”
Despite tensions, Sheeran has been a good sport throughout the lawsuit. On Tuesday he was seen hugging Kathryn Griffin Townsend, who is leading the lawsuit. Griffin Townsend collapsed outside the courtroom last week, though it is not clear why, as per People.
“I think Mr. Sheeran is a great artist with a great future,” Griffin Townsend said last week, adding that she didn’t want the lawsuit to get to this point. “But I have to protect my father’s legacy.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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