Cherry Seaborn: Ed Sheeran’s Wife’s Cancer Journey

British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran recently opened up about his wife, Cherry Seaborn’s cancer journey. Sheeran has released many top hits such as Thinking Out Loud, Perfect and The A Team and has sold over 200 million records globally.

Sheeran and Seaborn had known each other since they were kids but only started dating when they were adults. The couple got married in 2018 and have two kids, Lyra Antarctica and Jupiter. Despite her high-profile relationship with Sheeran, Seaborn is a private person who doesn't have public social media accounts and tends to stay out of the spotlight.

Seaborn got her master’s degree from Duke University in North Carolina. She worked on Wall Street for an accounting firm for a while before moving back to the UK to work for the firm's London office.

Seaborn has been influential in Sheeran’s music career. In a 2021 interview, Sheeran revealed that Seaborn had picked Bad Habits to be the first single on his album =. "She hasn't been wrong. There's one song she told me to cut from the album and now the album makes more sense," he shared.

Although Seaborn did not like being in the spotlight, she first publicly revealed her diagnosis in Sheeran’s 2023 Disney+ documentary Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All. She had discovered a tumor while pregnant with her second child in 2022.

She shared, "I got diagnosed with cancer at the start of the year which was a massive s**ter. It made me massively reflect on our mortality. I would never agree to do anything like this but it made me think, 'Oh if I died, what's people's perception of me? What do you leave behind?'"

Seaborn was diagnosed when she was 6 months pregnant. According to her doctors, there was “no route to treatment until after the birth”.

Sheeran shared emotionally in the documentary that it was a "horrible" experience. The singer-songwriter had also been struggling with the death of his close friend Jamal Edwards, the music entrepreneur who helped launch his career at the time. He was also preparing to defend himself in a high-profile copyright infringement lawsuit over his 2017 hit Shape of You, which he ultimately won.

His wife’s diagnosis left Sheeran struggling with mental health issues at that time as he felt like he "didn't want to live anymore”. "There's nothing you can do about it. You feel so powerless," he said. "And I have had that throughout my life.… You're under the waves drowning. You're just sort of in this thing. And you can't get out of it.”

After carrying the baby to term, Seaborn underwent a surgery to remove the cancerous tumor. Fortunately, the surgery was successful and the tumor was removed.

In March 2026, Sheeran appeared on the Friends Keep Secrets podcast and provided an update on his wife. He shared that she had recovered well after having undergone the surgery.

"She's fine, she had the operation. She was pregnant at the time. That's why it was difficult. She had the operation to remove the tumor after the birth of our second child. And thankfully, touch wood, totally fine," he shared.