To Sir Elton John, Ed Sheeran is "a dear friend".
So dear, in fact, that it seems he's the only person in the world who knows how to say his surname properly.
Yep, there we and the many other millions of people around the world were, naively thinking that you were supposed to pronounce the that double e in his surname. Seemingly not...
Elton wasn't present at Wednesday night's BRIT awards, but he was able to record a video message for Ed as he won the Global Success award. Speaking from Las Vegas, where he currently has a residency at Caesar's Palace, he appeared to come up with a never-heard-before way of saying 'Sheeran'.
Here, have a listen:
https://twitter.com/RyanJL/status/966431571887706113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nme.com%2Fnews%2Fmusic%2Felton-john-doesnt-know-pronounce-ed-sheerans-name-2247290
Shiran? Sh'ran? We're really not sure.
As you might expect, the pronunciation was swiftly picked up on by many watching at home, sparking a number of tweets...
https://twitter.com/AL_osaurus/status/966428375857418241
https://twitter.com/AlanCarr/status/966429722673664000
https://twitter.com/mlawelshgirl/status/966431736329654272
https://twitter.com/lukeshepherdson/status/966428840447959041
Perhaps the fairest comment on the matter came from Danny Baker, who tweeted this:
https://twitter.com/prodnose/status/966459556221083648
