Ed Sheeran Reveals The Story Behind Gifting Sam Smith A 6-Foot NSFW Statue

Earlier this week, Ed Sheeran made headlines after Sam Smith shared that the singer gifted them a two-ton "six-foot-two marble penis." Smith recounted the hilarious story during their appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. "I have to get it craned into my house," the singer said, revealing that they "want to turn it into a fountain, which I think will be hard to do." 

Days later, Sheeran appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to give fans a bit of context for the strange story. "Elton John has been involved in my career from the get-go, and he buys me weird gifts," he told Colbert on Thursday night (October 13th). "Just, like, odd gifts, like sexual sort of objects."

After revealing that he wanted to one-up another NSFW gift Elton John received from Eminem, he decided he would do that by getting him a "massive marble penis" statue. "I got this huge, flopping, droopy thing," Sheeran said. "I got a few different iterations — there was a big, erect, vein-y one."

The word of Sheeran's hilarious gift spread fast. "I gave it to him for his birthday and Elton was over the moon about it. And then it got out in the press that I had done it," he said. "And I would be doing interviews and people would be like, 'Well, can I have one?'"

He continued, "Sam was recording at a studio up the road and Sam saw one of them and said, 'Can I have one?' And I said, 'What would you like?'" Sheeran explained. "And Sam said, 'One the size of me. One that's 6-foot-2.' So there we go. That's it."

Sheeran recently announced his first North American tour in nearly 5 years. The US dates for the Mathematics Tour will kick off in 2023 starting at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX on May 6.