American awards ceremonies are "horrible" events "filled with resentment and hatred", says Ed Sheeran. Rather than being a celebration of musical excellence, they cause him to "walk away feeling sad". They should be more like UK awards shows, which are basically just a good excuse for a piss up.
The musician was speaking after last weekend's MTV VMAs - where he performed recent single 'Bad Habits' - the video for which was up for (but did not win) three prizes.
He tells Audacy: "The room is filled with resentment and hatred towards everyone else and it's quite an uncomfortable atmosphere. All the artists are sweet people, but they're surrounded by entourages that want them to win too, so it's one artist surrounded by ten people and another artist surrounded by ten people and everyone is kind of giving each other the side eye".
"It's nothing to do with MTV or awards show, it's at all the other awards shows ; Billboards, Grammys, AMAs", he adds. "It's just lots of people wanting other people to fail and I don't like that. In England, our award shows are just like, every one gets drunk and no one really cares who wins or loses, it's just sort of a good night out".
He's not the only person who feels this way, he goes on: "People get the same feeling as me at those award shows. I've spoke to people and they're like, 'I just felt really depressed afterwards'. The atmosphere is just not nice… It's a really, really horrible atmosphere to be in there. I always walk away feeling sad and I don't like it".
The VMAs, of course, is mainly an event where artists win awards for other people's hard work making their videos, so that probably adds another layer of awfulness to it all. Anyway, watch Sheeran perform to a load of hate-filled people who just want to see him fail here.