Ed Sheeran says he felt 'hurt' when he was replaced by Billie Eilish for James Bond theme

dailymail.co.uk:

Ed Sheeran is opening up about one of his more recent career disappointments where he had a dream job offered and then taken away.During an appearance on That Peter Crouch Podcast, the pop star revealed he had been tapped to write and perform the theme song for Daniel Craig's latest James Bond film, No Time To Die, when he was abruptly replaced by Billie Eilish. 'I'm not gonna pretend it didn't hurt not doing it,' the singer admitted to Crouch.

Heartbreak: Ed Sheeran revealed that he had been tapped to wrote and perform a theme song for the most recent Bond film No Time To Die, but ended up being replaced by Billie EilishThe opportunity first came about in 2017 when Sheeran met with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, who had expressed interest in having him compose and perform a Bond theme song, according to Rolling Stone.While eagerly writing the theme, Sheeran was told by his manager Stuart Camp that music is often the last thing done for a film.

But between COVID-19 production delays and the process of doing music at the end of the creative process, it ended up leaving the door open for another artist to slip in.It turns out during that lapse of time, Danny Boyle, who had worked with Sheeran on the romantic comedy film Yesterday (2019), dropped out as director of No Time To Die due to 'creative differences' and replaced by Cary Joji Fukunaga.

Ultimately, the No Time To Die theme ended up going to Billie Eilish, who went on to have huge success with her version of the song.