Ed Sheeran has been stopped by police from busking in India after he was told he lacked permissions.
The songwriter was seen singing the hit single Shape of You on a pavement in the southern city of Bengaluru before his concert on Sunday night.
But a viral video clip shows a police officer walking up to Sheeran while he is singing with the crowd and unplugging the microphone, as onlookers jeer. A dismayed Sheeran puts down his guitar and walks off.
Police said event organisers had been refused permission for the performance, which was in one of the busiest areas of a city of 12 million people that is notorious for its heavy traffic.
A Bengaluru police official, Shekar T Tekkannanavar, told the news agency ANI: “I refused to give permission because Church Street gets very crowded. That is the reason he was asked to vacate the place.”
But Sheeran, who is known for performing in unexpected places, insisted later on his Instagram account that he did have permission to perform Shape of You, which was the first song to reach 3bn streams on Spotify.
He wrote: “We had permission to busk, by the way. Hence, us playing in that exact spot was planned out beforehand. It wasn’t just us randomly turning up. All good, though.”
Fans shared their disappointment at the police decision on social media. PC Mohan, a local MP from the ruling BJP party, posted on X that the impromptu gig had taken on a “sour note” when police arrived, adding that “even global stars must follow local rules – no permit, no performance”.
The artist is in India for a 15-day leg of his tour, The Mathematics, and performed in front of thousands of people at an open ground in Bengaluru later that night, accompanied by the Indian singer Shilpa Rao.
He surprised fans by singing two hit songs in the Telugu language with Rao on stage. He performed two nights in Bengaluru on 8 and 9 February after an extra show was added due to huge demand.
