Ed Sheeran couldn't care less about criticism of his cameo in the Game of Thrones season seven premiere.
The Shape of You hitmaker surprised U.S. viewers of the popular fantasy drama on Sunday (16Jul17), when he made a guest appearance as a minstrel in a scene with main character Arya Stark, played by Maisie Williams.
Ed's feature drew mixed reactions from fans, with some critics taking to social media to question why the pop star was cast in the series at all.
The backlash appeared to prompt the singer to take his Twitter profile offline on Monday (17Jul17), weeks after admitting he "can't read" negative messages on the site anymore, but his absence didn't last long as he had reactivated the account by Tuesday evening (18Jul17), with a notice informing fans he no longer uses the micro-blogging page as he has switched solely to Instagram.
On Wednesday (19Jul17), Ed took to the photo-sharing site to dismiss reports suggesting the nasty comments had scared him off Twitter, insisting the account closure was just a coincidence.
"Last I'll say on this," he began. "I came off Twitter I was always intending to come off Twitter (sic). had nothing to do with what people said about my Game of Thrones cameo because I am in Game of Thrones. Why the hell would I worry what people thought about that? It's clearly f**king awesome."
Ed continued, "Timing was just a coincidence, but believe what you want."
The star made the remarks beside a photo of himself holding hands with his manager while on the runway at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia.
He captioned it, "Here is an unrelated picture of me and my wonderful manager riding off into the sunset together".
Sheeran's comments emerged shortly after Game of Thrones director Jeremy Podeswa spoke out in the musician's defence, insisting his casting was "appropriate for the part because he needed to sing".
"If people didn't know who Ed was, they wouldn't have thought about it twice," he added to Newsweek. "The hoo-ha seems to be from things that are outside of the world of the show. In the world of the show he did a lovely job, and he looks like he belongs in that world."
The 26-year-old previously told America's Today show he was turning his back on Twitter because he wanted to focus on the positive aspects of his life.
"As a human being, we always read the one negative one and ignore the others, and I don't want to do that," he explained earlier this month (Jul17). "It's just foolish to do when there's love out there in the world to look at the negative stuff. I'm just choosing not to read it."
