Ed Sheeran shows up for Hamilton woman’s birthday party
British singer songwriter Ed Sheeran took a break from his World Tour to drop in to a Hamilton fan’s birthday party
Hamilton woman Jess Wright turned 20 last weekend and birthdays always call for celebrations.
But Jess’s was different – British singer and songwriter Ed Sheeran showed up to the party.
And I was lucky to be invited to this birthday of all birthdays.
“It was so unreal, he was just so humble and down to earth,” Wright said after meeting the superstar.
Diagnosed with leukemia in October last year, Jess was unable to make Sheeran’s April concert.
We had planned to go to the concert together. When this fell through we turned to social media to see what we could do.
We made an event called ED VISIT JESS along with a hash tag #KiaOraEdPlsVisitJess in the hopes it would go viral, and it did.
Within hours more than 1000 people were on board.
Our campaign gained a lot of media attention from radio shows and The Waikato Times before going national on TVNZ’s Breakfast show.
The coverage brought success!
On the Saturday before Jess’s Birthday, Sheeran’s record company notified us he wanted to visit.
Sunday arrived and we were all shell shocked at what was about to happen. Jess had a lot of butterflies and some of us were shaking because of a mixture of anticipation and excitement.
Ed Sheeran spent half an hour with Jess and 12 of her close family and friends.
The minute he walked in Jess’s face was filled with the biggest smile imaginable.
We all sat together and began to banter away.
The conversation consisted of movies, food and Sheeran talking about the next stops on his tour. The usual topics when you are talking to a superstar.
He told us about the time he watched the Lego movie three times in one day.
And we were also ‘enlightened’ to the fact that most pizzas are classified as dessert because of the amount of sugar in them. I think I could have happily lived my life without knowing that.
Before we knew it the time had gone by and Ed was off to his next appointment, to X-Factor. However, he did to stay long enough to take awesome selfies with us.
Jess said she would always treasure this moment.
And her smile when he entered the room is framed in my mind. It is a memory I will take with me forever.
When we returned from Auckland Hospital, Chris Chang from TVNZ interviewed Jess and myself about the meeting with Ed.
The next day NZ was told of the meeting on the Breakfast Show and quickly from there the news went viral.
Our story has since gained worldwide recognition from sites such as Daily Mail, Buzzfeed, Time.com and MTV. Ryan Seacrest, Perez Hilton and Zoey Deschanel also posted about our story on their social media accounts.
From what started as a very long shot idea, turned into reality and then morphed into worldwide viral news.
We are all incredibly grateful for the support we received to make this idea happen. Jess was truly given the best birthday ever.
Now to start planning the 21st… Ed, would you like to join us in Rarotonga!
#EdComeToRaro.
