Ed Sheeran Says He's 'Always' Trying to Write Songs for Rihanna

He originally wrote "Shape Of You" with Rihanna in mind.

March 27, 2025

In an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran admitted that he's "always" trying to write songs for Rihanna, who he believes has "the best taste."

At one point in time, Ed Sheeran considered giving his huge hit "Shape of You" to Rihanna, but ultimately he decided to keep the song for himself. Fallon asked Sheeran about almost giving the track to Rihanna, and he had nothing but praise for her. "I think, out of any musician, Rihanna has the best taste out of anyone," he said around the 4:50 point of the interview, seen above. "She always picks just really, really great songs."

Sheeran has an extensive list of writing credits for other musicians, and he's keen to write something for Rihanna at some point. "So, as songwriters, within the songwriting community, you're always writing songs to pitch to Rihanna," he shared. "Every single album that I've ever done, I've always gone to write, on the side, 'Let's try and write a song that we can pitch to Rihanna.' Like, 'Love Yourself,' the one I did for [Justin] Bieber, was originally [with] Rihanna in mind. ... I promise you, there's so many songwriters out there that their best song came from trying to write a Rihanna song."

He added that he didn't feel like "Shape of You" was a song that "suited" him when he was writing it, but after some changes, he felt it worked better. "I had to get my head round it, though, because I very much wrote it with someone else in mind," he said. Rihanna hasn't released an album since 2016's Anti, although she dropped the songs "Lift Me Up" and "Born Again" for the second Black Panther movie in 2022.

Elsewhere during the interview, Sheeran revealed that his next album will be titled Play. He said that the title was inspired by an idea he had when he was 18 to release 10 albums, similar to Quentin Tarantino's plan to do ten movies. He suggested the record will be followed by projects titled Pause, Rewind, Fast-Forward, and Stop.

Check out the interview up top.