Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift want to be the best

27 January 2017

Ed Sheeran admits he and Taylor Swift take their competitive streak "too far".

Ed Sheeran

The 'Castle on the Hill' singer thinks one of the reasons why he and the 'Bad Blood' hitmaker are such good friends is they both know what it was like to be the "underdog" at school and are determined to dey expectations and be the biggest artists in the world

He said: "There's an underdog element to it. Taylor was never the popular kid in school. I was never the popular kid in school.

"Then you get to the point when you become the most popular kid in school - and we both take it a bit too far.

"She wants to be the biggest female artist in the world and I want to be the biggest male artist in the world. It also comes from always being told that you can't do something and being like, 'F you. I can.' "

While the 25-year-old star insists he isn't in competition with other singer/songwriters, he has his eye on outselling Adele, though he knows that is a goal that will be tough to achieve.

He told the new issue of Britain's GQ magazine: "Adele is the one person who's sold more records than me in the past ten years. She's the only person I need to sell more records than. That's a big f***ing feat because her last album sold 20 million. But if I don't set her as the benchmark then I'm selling myself short.

"I'm not in competition [creatively] because we all sit in our own lanes, but once the creative product is out there is a race to the finish line."

And the 'Shape of You' singer doesn't care if other artists "copy every single thing" he does because he is confident in his own abilities and will do whatever it takes to be successful.

He added: "There are a lot of singer-songwriters around now. I'm not the first but there are more than before. I'm very happy for everyone to be in the same race as me, even if they copy every single thing I've done.

"In a 100m sprint to get a No1 album I just know I'm going to win. I don't care who's doing what. I just know I'm going to win. I'm going to make sure I come first."