Pop megastar Ed Sheeran has denied that he unlawfully serenaded the Indian public after police said he lacked the necessary permission to play and abruptly terminated a street performance.
The British singer-songwriter and four-time Grammy winner is touring the world’s most populous country but took time out between concerts to busk to a surprised crowd in tech hub Bengaluru on Sunday (Feb 9).
Videos shared on social media show a police officer disconnecting his microphone midway through a rendition of his hit Shape of You on Church Street, a bustling retail hub.
Local authorities said that while Sheeran had a permit to play at concerts, that did not extend to impromptu outdoor performances.
“He is a very famous singer and naturally there will be chaos. To prevent that, police had not given him permission,” Karnataka’s home minister G Parameshwara said on Monday.
“In spite of that, he has come and tried to perform, so police prevented him. Nothing beyond that.”
Sheeran denied he had broken the law, saying he had been granted permission to busk “in that exact spot”.
“It wasn’t just us randomly turning up,” he wrote on Instagram shortly after the incident, adding magnanimously that it was “all good though”.
