Ed Sheeran Reveals How Elton John & Eminem Inspired His 6-Foot Penis Statue Gift to Sam Smith

Sam Smith raised a quite a few eyebrows earlier this week when they revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show that Ed Sheeran had gifted the “Unholy” singer a six-foot marble penis statue. But in a Thursday (Oct. 13) appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the “Bad Habits” singer took the chance to explain himself, and revealed that none other than Elton John and Eminem had played important parts in inspiring the peculiar present.

Though Sheeran also spoke on The Late Show about meeting the queen and his upcoming North American tour, the very first thing Colbert wanted to know about was the statue. More specifically — why?

After revealing that the custom monument weighed in at “two and a half tons,” the musician offered the unexpected — but not altogether surprising — context behind his gift, which Smith previously revealed to Clarkson they’d been inspired by Bridgerton to name the “Duke of Hastings.” “Elton John has been involved in my career from the get-go, and he buys me weird gifts,” Sheeran began. I can’t talk about them on TV — but, like, odd gifts. Sexual sort of objects …I love you, Elton.”

“He is very proud of the fact that Eminem bought him and his husband, David, diamond-encrusted c–k rings for their wedding,” he continued, with a flabbergasted Colbert removing his glasses in astonishment. “I’m like, I need to one-up this, I need to get Elton a present that’s gonna make him go, ‘Oh my god.'”

That’s when inspiration struck the four-time Grammy winner, who proceeded to order “a few different iterations” of penis sculptures. “I gave it to him for his birthday, and Elton was over the moon about it,” Sheeran chuckled. “It got out in the press that I’d done it. And people would just be like, ‘Can I have one?’ Sam saw one of them and said, ‘Can I have one?'”

“And I said, ‘What would you like?’ and Sam said, ‘One the size of me — six foot two,'” he concluded. “So … there we go. That’s it.”

Watch Ed Sheeran dish to Stephen Colbert about the statues and more above.