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Ed Sheeran’s Social Media Hiatus In Its 4th Week, While One Direction Take A Break Too

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 01:30 PST, Jan 8, 2016

Ed Sheeran is about to catch up to Taylor Swift’s career achievements, with his second album, X, officially certified double platinum by officials at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), according to ET.

In late 2015, Ed Sheeran announced his plans to catch up to Taylor Swift’s career, and it now seems that the 24-year-old “Thinking Out Loud” singer is getting closer to it. According to the rules of the RIAA, an album must reach at least one million copies before reaching double platinum status.

Since X’s release in 2014, it has now achieved multi-platinum status with total sales of two million copies. Since 2014, only four albums have gone multi-platinum: Taylor Swift’s 1989, Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour and Adele’s 25, which sold a whopping 3.38 million copies in its first week after the release on November 15.

Ed Sheeran announced last month that he wants to catch up to Swift’s success.

“At the moment, Taylor is a benchmark in America and a lot of other countries. In America, I want to catch up with her.”

The news was shared by RIAA chiefs by posting a photo of Ed Sheeran standing with his early Christmas present on Twitter.

Ironically enough, Ed Sheeran is unlikely to personally read the tweet since he announced on December 12, 2015, that he was quitting social media for a while after ending his X world tour in Auckland, New Zealand, that same day.

Ed Sheeran also announced he is taking time off from his phone and emails and said he hopes his family and friends will understand his need to go under the radar for a while.

Ed appears to have been serious in his promise, since it’s now been four weeks and not a single new post has appeared on his Twitter or Instagram accounts.

Not only is Ed Sheeran taking a break from social media, but according to Movie News Guide, One Direction may be taking a break from music. Until when? Good question, since nobody really knows, but apparently it’s got something to do with their latest X Factor performance.

The finale episode of the British X Factor saw one of the greatest performances of the band. It was a thoroughly thought-out move, since The X Factor gave One Direction its first major break in the music industry.

One Direction uploaded a “thank you” video to thank the fans for everything and to send good wishes to several millions of their fans on social media. It’s expected that the band will still continue posting updates on their social media accounts, unlike Ed Sheeran.

Lately, numerous reports have surfaced on the internet claiming the band is planning to go on a hiatus after they complete their tour to promote Made in the A.M., their fifth album, which was released on November 13, 2015.

In other Ed Sheeran news, the singer/songwriter presented Seven Sharp’s host Toni Street with a memorable present after a year of fighting with heath issues. She believed she was preparing a Christmas gift for a deserving family, according to TVNZ.

Ed Sheeran then said that it’s his natural behavior to surprise people.

“Kiwis and Aussies – there’s always a stunt involved.”

Toni was shocked to find out that Ed Sheeran was waiting for her after posing as a cleaner, according to the news outlet. It was previously reported that the popular TV presenter had been battling an auto-immune disease.

Toni was diagnosed with Churg-Strauss syndrome, which is a rare disease that has no cure, after battling with allergies for the past six years as well as experiencing severe stomach pains, which led to her having her gallbladder removed.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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