Ed Sheeran trolls Instagram fans with his infamous lion tattoo

Ed Sheeran took some heat for the somewhat cartoonish lion tattoo he got emblazoned across his chest three weeks ago.

Taking to Instagram, he mischievously told his fans that it had actually been a ruse, and that the tattoo was fake - prompting responses such as 'you can kind of tell it's not real', and 'Love the joke, you are toooo funny!'

Was only joking about the lion

A photo posted by @teddysphotos on Aug 26, 2015 at 4:31am PDT

But it turns out it was all one big double bluff. Sheeran had to cover up his chest tattoo in order to film his brief cameo in next week's episode of Home and Away, the legendary Australian soap opera. Then 11 hours after the first Instagram post, he shared a second, revealing half of the lion's face beneath his make-up.

Only joking, covered it up for a TV show didn't I A photo posted by @teddysphotos on Aug 26, 2015 at 2:41pm PDT