Ed Sheeran Tears up Over Wife Cherry Seaborn’s Cancer Diagnosis

Ed Sheeran and his wife Cherry Seaborn are speaking openly about her cancer diagnosis. Sheeran and Seaborn shared their experience of learning that Seaborn, who is known for staying away from the spotlight, had cancer while pregnant with their second child in the singer’s new Disney+ docuseries, Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All, which premieres Wednesday.

Seaborn, who was diagnosed with cancer in February 2022, revealed it was the diagnosis that caused her to agree to participate in the documentary. “I got diagnosed with cancer at the start of the year which was a massive s-ter,” she says, as per PEOPLE. “It made me massively reflect on our mortality. I would never agree to do anything like this but it made me think, ‘Oh if I died, what’s people’s perception of me? What do you leave behind?’”

She continues, “For Ed, the whole point is he wants to say to people, ‘I’m not just this music machine. I’m not just this robot that tries to get No. 1. I’m a father, I’m a son, I’m a friend.’ It wasn’t until this year when I was like, ‘I might die.’” Sheeran notes that his wife is playing down how “horrible” the experience of getting her diagnosis was as he himself begins to tear up.

The “Shape of You” singer, who wrote seven songs in four hours after learning his wife had cancer, calls his marriage to Seaborn “the most amazing thing in my life that nobody really knows about,” adding that “everything in my life got so much better when she got into it.” Sheeran’s private life will be front-and-center in the new docuseries, which premieres Wednesday on Disney+ ahead of the release of his new album – (pronounced Subtract) on Friday.

The musician announced his album on March 1, saying in a press release at the time that Subtract contained his “deepest, darkest thoughts.” He shared, “I had been working on Subtract for a decade, trying to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be. Then at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art.”

“Writing songs is my therapy. It helps me make sense of my feelings. I wrote without thought of what the songs would be, I just wrote whatever tumbled out,” he continued. “And in just over a week, I replaced a decade’s worth of work with my deepest darkest thoughts.” Sheeran wrote of Seaborn, who gave birth to the couple’s second daughter in May 2022, “Within the space of a month, my pregnant wife got told she had a tumour, with no route to treatment until after the birth.” This album is “opening the trapdoor into my soul,” he noted. “For the first time I’m not trying to craft an album people will like, I’m merely putting something out that’s honest and true to where I am in my adult life.”