Us explains Ed Sheeran and Niall Horan’s history, alleged drama

Niall Horan had a special surprise in store for his concert on Friday, August 23 in Dublin – a duet with Ed Sheeran.

“Can you please give it up for my good friend and the great Ed Sheeran,” Horan, 30, told concertgoers on Friday, according to video footage shared via his social media pages. “Let’s have a little nostalgia [and play] a song this man wrote.”

Horan was talking about “Little Things,” a 2012 song made famous by his former band One Direction.

While the duet seemed like a sweet moment between friends, avid fans know it also put bad blood in the rearview mirror.

Sheeran, 33, co-wrote One Direction’s ‘Little Things’ Fiona Bevanwho told it earlier Songwriting Magazine in 2019 that the real ’50/50′ collaboration emerged from her original idea. The Grammy nominee went on to write 1D’s songs “Moments,” “Over Again” and “18” as a personal connection with bandmates Horan. Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik And Liam Payne deepened.

After years of post-1D friendship, Sheeran and Horan became involved in a love triangle with a fellow singer, now ten years ago. Ellie Goulding that inspired an apparent revenge song.

Sheeran first dated Goulding, now 37, and once confirmed they were an item when they were seen holding hands at the 2013 MTV Music Video Awards. While it’s unknown when they broke up, Sheeran’s “Don’t the following year claiming that Goulding cheated on him with Horan.

“I never saw him as a threat / Until you disappeared with him to have sex, of course,” Sheeran sings. “It’s not like we were both on tour / We were staying on the same damn hotel floor / And I wasn’t looking for a promise or obligation / But it was never all fun, and I thought you were different.”

Neither Sheeran nor Horan even spoke publicly about the love triangle, but Goulding denied being unfaithful.

After a fan questioned her fidelity in a 2023 TikTok comment, she clapped back at the idea that she cheated on Sheeran with Horan.

“False,” she pointed out. “But also killing.”

Everything seems to be water under the bridge. Following their duet “Little Things” on Friday, Horan and Sheeran performed an acoustic rendition of Sheeran’s “Lego House.”

“Thank you @teddysphotos for coming to play with me in Dublin tonight. Another great memory,” Horan wrote on his Instagram post.

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Since splitting from One Direction in 2016, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik have had varying degrees of success in the music industry. All five original members have embarked on solo careers, with Malik becoming the first to do so after abruptly leaving the boy band in March 2015. Then he signed […]

Sheeran, who wore Horan’s The show live on tour merch, even joined the Irishman backstage for a special post-show party.

“Myself and Ed are backstage here and we’re going to try to split the G,” Horan captioned on Saturday, August 24: Instagram video. “For those who don’t know what the G-junction is, you basically have to take one to two sips [of a pint of Guinness beer] and place this black and white line in the hole in the letter G [of the cup logo].”

Sheeran, from England, thought he had made a “pretty good” effort.

“You definitely did a good job,” Horan said. “I didn’t get close. He’s more Irish than us! He is the most Irish non-Irish man I have ever met.”

Sheeran is now married to a former schoolmate Cherry Seaborn and they share two daughters, while Horan is in a long-term relationship Amelia Woolley. Goulding, meanwhile, shares a son with ex-husband Caspar Jopling.