Nevertheless, the “Pondering Out Loud” singer indicated there was more to it, telling a Seattle radio station the next month, “I mean, normal people don’t hold hands in the event that they’re just friends.”
He added: “It happened. And no longer.”
And in 2014, when Sheeran released the song “Don’t”, by which he sings about betrayal by one other singer, many fans speculated that the song was referring to himself, Goulding and Horan.
He said in 2015 Entertainment Weekly that while a British newspaper printed that “No” was about Goulding and Horan, he “never really confirmed it”.
“We got in contact they usually deleted the story,” he continued. “But after all the damage had already been done by that time because every other newspaper took notice.”