Ed Sheeran: A New Twist On That Impromptu Duet Story
Ed Sheeran made global news yesterday when he crashed (in the best possible way) a 13-year-old Edmonton singing student’s performance at a fundraising event on Sunday.
As we reported in the Inquisitr yesterday, when Ed Sheeran heard that 13-year-old Sydney Bourbeau was singing his song, “Thinking Out Loud,” on stage at the West Edmonton Mall, he planned the surprise of a lifetime. Emerging from a nearby HMV Store, Ed Sheeran made his way onstage partway through the song and started singing along, turning an impressive-in-its-own-right solo performance into an impromptu duet.
Since then, the story itself and footage of the surprise have gone viral on social media and YouTube around the world, with NDTV reporting that the YouTube video has had more than 2.1 million views since June 14.
A new piece of the puzzle has emerged since we posted the original story, as we are now aware via CNN that the video footage was recorded by Ed Sheeran’s cousin, Murray Cummings.
That explains why, at the start of the footage, a mysterious male voice addresses Ed Sheeran as if he knows him personally, and more importantly, as if he knows that something pretty amazing is going to happen.
“What’s happening, Ed?”
Ed Sheeran respond in an almost sheepish way with an eye roll and his classic line.
“Just gotta go sing with someone.”
This was no ordinary fan footage, as it now becomes obvious (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) that the person recording the video knew what Ed Sheeran had planned.
Ed Sheeran’s cousin posted the footage to Twitter shortly after it was recorded.
Watch Ed ruin this poor girls performance in the Mall today :-p http://t.co/bMeT6kr8wI
— Murray (@murraycummings) June 14, 2015
The moment was almost lost forever, though, as it seems that Ed Sheeran’s cousin originally set the YouTube video to private. Luckily, the mistake was picked up by an observant friend, who told Murray Cummings that no one could watch the footage.
@SasstasticShiv haha it should be off Private now — Murray (@murraycummings) June 14, 2015
It wasn’t private for much longer after that, with several media outlets contacting Ed Sheeran’s cousin, requesting permission to use his video footage.
@murraycummings Good morning Murray. Did you film this clip? If so, would you allow us to use it on @SkyNews please?
— Hazel Baker (@HazelBakerSky) June 16, 2015
@murraycummings I’m a video producer at the Cdn Press&we may interview the girl featured.would I be able to use ur vid, w/proper credit? thx — Shetu Modi (@ShetuModi) June 15, 2015
The now-iconic Twitter post has been retweeted more than 5,100 times and favorited more than 9,400 times.
[Photo: Joerg Koch / Getty Images]
