Pop singer Ed Sheeran staunchly defended himself on Tuesday against allegations that his hit ballad Thinking Out Loud ripped off the melody of Marvin Gaye’s classic song Let’s Get It On.
Sheeran appeared in a New York courtroom this week as part of a lawsuit filed in 2017 by the heirs of a Let’s Get It On co-writer, Ed Townsend, who created the soulful song alongside Gaye.
The lawsuit claims Sheeran, 32, and his own co-writer, Amy Wadge, knowingly plagiarized the song’s iconic four-chord sequence.
Sheeran has maintained that he created the song Thinking Out Loud himself with Wadge and did not infringe copyright. He said the romantic song was inspired by his grandparents’ love.