Ed Sheeran has praised the BBC Music Awards for being one of the only award ceremonies that is not "rigged".
The ‘Thinking Out Loud’ hitmaker – who picked up the award at the ceremony last night (11.12.14) for British Artist of the Year – explained how he had "lost" out on other prizes because he couldn’t attend the shows.
He told BANG Showbiz: "Like most award shows, you don’t really know what’s going to happen, you don’t know whether its been rigged …
"I think if it was going to be a rigged thing, there would be 15 awards and they would make the Coldplay Award for Excellence, so Coldplay would turn up. That’s what you kind of get from those big things, they make those awards so people turn up …
"Like, One Direction aren’t even nominated and they’re coming to play, I think it shows the power of BBC as a brand."
The 23-year-old singer also revealed that he was "second choice" in the past for some award categories.
He said: "I won an award in the summer for a very, very big awards show, and I won it because Pharrell didn’t turn up, and they were like, ‘Well we were going to give it to Pharrell but he didn’t turn up so you can have it’. So I know award shows are rigged basically.
"I remember the MOBOs a couple of years ago, they said I’d won two and on the night, someone else won two, because I was on tour and couldn’t go. But god bless the MOBOs."
Meanwhile, Ed was full of thanks for his fans and the BBC as he picked up his award last night (11.12.14).
He said: "I just wanna say a massive thank you to everyone whose bought a record, bought a ticket, streamed on YouTube, streamed on Spotify … I don’t know if anyone here has, but thank you so much.
"Radio 1 and 1Xtra were the first people to ever play [my music] and that broke everything through for me. BBC have been such big supporters so I wanna say a massive thank you to them."
Ed Sheeran praises BBC Music Awards
