Ed Sheeran has spoken for the first time about reports that Princess Beatrice accidentally cut his face with a ceremonial sword while pretending to knight James Blunt at a party.
Visibly sporting a small cut to his cheek, the Give Me Love singer joked about his new look while performing at a gala dinner for East Angelia's Children's Hospices at the Natural History museum. Chatting to the crowd, he said: "It's nice to be back. I've had a whole year off. I went to Japan for about a month and hung out with Japanese people. Got my face cut open, anyone read about that?"
The cut was visible on Ed's face during the performance
According to reports, the singer was hurt while attending a recent party with the royal and fellow singer James. After James joked that he had always wanted to be knighted, Princess Beatrice fetched a ceremonial sword and pretended to dub him, but accidentally ended up cutting Ed's face while putting the sword over her shoulder, unaware that the 25-year-old was stood behind her.
The star joked about the incident
An insider told The Sun: "The blade cut into his face and it was just a few inches from his right eye… Ed really played it down. Everyone was totally shocked and apparently Beatrice was very upset. But Ed was the perfect gentleman and told her it was just an accident. Obviously the princess was upset and everyone was talking about it, but she and Ed spoke about and everything was fine. She did nothing wrong except mess around at a party and her friends, including Ed, all told her that."
Ed reportedly had to go to the hospital for stitches, but returned to the party later on and has been in good spirits about the unfortunate incident. However, the Twittersphere went into a frenzy over the story, with one person tweeting: "Does that now make him a cut above the rest?" while another wrote: "James Blunt: I didn't mean 'off with his Ed'".