Ed Sheeran said he’d have to be an “idiot” to rip off Marvin Gaye’s song “Let’s Get it On” and then perform it for thousands of fans.
The singer said this as he was grilled on the stand Tuesday in a suit accusing him of copyright infringement.
The British singer-songwriter attempted to rebuff claims that a video of him performing a mash-up version of Gaye’s 1973 R&B classic and his own Grammy-winning track “Thinking Out Loud” at a 2014 concert amounted to a confession.
“If I had done what you are accusing me of doing, I would be quite an idiot to stand on a stage in front of 20,000 people and do that,” an irate Sheeran, 32, said in Manhattan federal court.
The “Shape of You” singer had a tense back and forth with Keisha Rice, an attorney for the heirs of the late Ed Townsend — Gaye’s co-writer on the soul track — who filed suit against Sheeran in 2017.
During opening statements, another of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Ben Crump, argued Sheeran made a “confession” when he combined both hit songs during a live performance in Zurich, Switzerland.
A clip was shown in the courtroom of Sheeran bouncing back and forth between his “Thinking Out Loud” and “Let’s Get it On” — with Crump calling the video the case’s “smoking gun.”
