Ed Sheeran Steps Away From Warner Music Group After 15 Years

Ed Sheeran has left Warner Music Group after 15 years, closing a relationship that turned a scrappy pub songwriter into a stadium-filling pop mainstay. The split, announced via a fan newsletter, took effect last month and covers his deals with Atlantic Records and Asylum Records. Those imprints released all seven of Sheeran’s albums, from his 2011 debut Plus through last year’s Play.

Sheeran framed the move as a personal recalibration. He described starting out as a teenager with different priorities and now feeling the weight of a machinery built for a pop star, not the singer-songwriter he sees at his core. “I am, underneath it all, a singer songwriter who plays pub gigs,” he wrote. The tone was careful, deliberately undramatic. There was no disgruntled exit narrative, just the quiet friction of a life that outgrew a structure.

The partnership began through a chance meeting when Sheeran was 18. After a Notting Hill show, he crashed at the house of Ed Howard, then head of A&R for Asylum, without knowing Howard’s role. He played his music, talked about his ambitions, and later learned who Howard was. Howard and Ben Cook, who previously ran Asylum, became early believers, turning up at the tiny gigs nobody attended. When a deal landed after the No. 5 Collaborations project, Sheeran signed without hesitation. He called Howard and Asylum a door that stays open.

Warner Music Group confirmed the departure with a statement about stewarding Sheeran’s catalogue into the future. The exit leaves no wreckage. It marks a clear line between a teenage signing and a father of two deciding he needs to do things differently. The next 15 years are unwritten.