Ed Sheeran, You're Missing Nicki Minaj's Point

The day of the Video Music Awards nominations was a good day for Ed Sheeran, who is nominated for six VMAs, including Video of the Year. His BFF Taylor Swift, however, had a much rougher week after Swift jumped into a Twitter "feud" with Nicki Minaj, and unfortunately, Sheeran has since entered the fray. Swift misinterpreted Minaj's tweets about bias against black women in the music industry as a direct slight against herself and her nomination for "Bad Blood" for Video of the Year, when in reality, Minaj's tweets had nothing to do with Swift — they were about the music industry on a much larger scale. Sheeran made the same mistake as his cohort in an interview with Australia's Daily Telegraph on Thursday, saying:

I think everyone knows that Taylor has done nothing wrong in that situation. She didn’t nominate herself for the awards. She just made some good videos and people think they’re good...I think the Minaj point is a bit redundant...Her point is that you have to be skinny and white to get a Video of the Year nomination, but Beyoncé’s ‘7/11’ is in there, and that is celebrating the female figure in every form.

No, Ed, no! Stop. You're embarrassing yourself.

Not only did Sheeran misinterpret the tweets by projecting a jealousy of Swift onto Minaj's words, he went about commenting in the most reductive manner. Saying "But Beyoncé’s ‘7/11’ is in there," as a way to absolve MTV of racial bias is the equivalent of saying that you can't be racist if you're friend's with a person of color. MTV's celebration of one black female artist does not excuse MTV, or the music industry in general, for neglecting other women of color.

Sheeran acknowledged his faults in a Twitter reply to BuzzFeed, but it seems to me that his understanding of the issue is still a little thin:

In truth, I'm glad Sheeran felt the need to apologize and respond, but I also hope he learned the same lesson that Swift hopefully did this week: Don't comment until you understand the issue at hand. Period.