Ed Sheeran and Benny Blanco may make sweet music together, but when it comes to travel? Well, these artists have conflicting ideas.
The singer, who has worked with Selena Gomez’s new fiancé Blanco on songs like “Perfect” and “Don’t,” took to TikTok on Saturday to share a funny story about how the two traveled together from the United States to the United Kingdom, while working on Sheeran’s 2017 album Divide.
Using the Pepe the King Prawn meme — in which TikTokers use an image of the zany Muppets character as a backdrop for stories, set to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” — Sheeran described how Blanco was “scared of flying,” forcing them to take a boat across the Atlantic.
“We were on that boat for 10 whole days of my life,” Sheeran wrote. “10 whole days.”
A few days in, however, things got weirder. “A few nights in, we hear an announcement from the ship’s captain. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now passing over the spot where the Titanic sank’ Tourists head to the side of the boat, taking pictures of the water.”
According to Sheeran, he and Blanco “locked eyes.” Then they decided to watch the 1997 film Titanic.
“Benny holds me as we watch the movie,” Sheeran shared. “I can’t help thinking, was this his plan all along? Is he going to paint me like one of his French girls? Will he swing me round to some Irish bangers?”
And, of course, the most important question: “We could both fit on that wooden door…right?”
Fortunately for Sheeran, when he woke up the next morning, he was “dry” and only “slightly cold.”
“A good portion of Divide was written when I was in genuine fear of becoming a Calippo,” Sheeran shared, referring to the brand of ice pop. “Ready for the plot twist? Benny got on a flight a month later.”
This isn’t the first time that this story has made news. Blanco previously talked about his Titanic adventure with Sheeran during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April. He also shared other details of their cruise adventure, which led to the completion of Divide, which won Best Pop Vocal Album at the Grammys in 2018.
“Ed’s so nice. He’s the nicest guy in the world,” Blanco told Fallon, “[The cruise] gave us a room to write it in. It was the same room that … there was a daytime pianist that was like an 85-year-old woman. She would come in to practice everyday and had no idea who either one of us was. She was like, ‘Hey, it’s my time to practice.'”
In 2022, Blanco shared a pic on Instagram of him and Sheeran with their shared Grammy, along with a lengthy post celebrating five years of the award-winning album, which he said changed his life “forever.”
“It’s not very often u meet someone in ur 20s that u get to look at and say this is one of my best friends,” Blanco gushed in the caption. “I don’t mean that in some corny LA way that people say when they have known someone for 2 weeks… we’ve gotten to watch each other grow… ive seen ed fall in love… fall out of love… cry to me after an all nighter at a festival… headline a festival… have a child and a beautiful family… and everything in btw… music was always the excuse but getting to laugh and watch u rip every shirt i own into shreds whenever we get drunk is the good stuff.”
He also referred to their cross-ocean trip, writing, “I just wanna thank u for bringing me on the journey… i love u and i still can’t believe we wrote half of this on a boat to England from the us cuz i was scared to fly… thank u to all the amazing collaborators and fans !!! i’m still pinching myself.”