PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 21 -- Ed Sheeran broke down during his concert here after describing the fallout from the controversy surrounding rapper Macklemore's removal from his tour as the hardest week of his life.

The Sun reported that Sheeran told the 50,000-strong crowd he had felt abandoned by friends, family and people he had known for years amid calls for him to cancel his Loop Tour.

Sheeran said he had been urged by numerous people to call off the tour, but chose to continue after seeing that ticket sales for the Philadelphia show had held up.

"In these situations you really find out who your friends are. It's been a weird week. It happened very quickly. At the same time, I had so many people telling me to cancel this tour and so many...