Ed Sheeran Reveals Why He Turned Down an Offer to Perform the ‘First Gig in Space’: ‘Mate, I Ain’t Doing It’

There are many places Ed Sheeran will perform, but space isn’t one of them.

In a new interview with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2, the “Azizam” superstar opened up about receiving an offer to perform the “first gig in space” and why he turned it down.

“I was offered to go to space a while ago, you know? And it terrifies me,” said Sheeran, 34. “I want to go to space when it’s like flying to France and 40,000 people have done it, and you can just book it online.”

“I don’t want to be a guinea pig for that, because it still is dangerous,” he explained. “There’s places on this planet that I haven’t been to, I’ve never been to Greenland, I would love to go to Greenland, there’s places on this planet I would far rather go to than space.”

Sheeran recalled having a conversation “about doing a gig there, doing a first gig in space. I’m sure lots of people got that email, but, yeah, it terrifies me.”

“Mate, I ain’t doing it, I’ve got kids,” said the father of daughters Lyra Antarctica, 5, and Jupiter, 3, shared with wife Cherry Seaborn.

“I’m not going to risk that for a Guinness World Record something or other,” declared Sheeran. “I’m not going to risk my kids not having a dad.”

The Grammy winner’s latest album, Play, was released on Friday, Sept. 12. One day later, he performed a small show with TikTok at New York City’s Domino Park — safely on the ground of Earth.

In another recent interview with iHeartRadio Canada, Sheeran revealed his next album, Rewind, is already almost finished.

“I made Play and Rewind at the same time,” he said. “We finished Play first because it felt like the most exciting one. So, Rewind is… I’d say two months off being totally locked and loaded and ready to go. And I guess at some point in the next 18 months, it will come out.”

The “Old Phone” artist continued, “But yeah, they’re very much like twin albums, I guess. One was one lent more into Indian culture and one lent more into nostalgia. So they kind of veered off in different directions.”