Foy Vance has praised Ed Sheeran's wife, family and friends for keeping his feet on the ground.

The Northern Irish singer/songwriter was signed by Ed's record label Gingerbread Man Records after the 'Shape of You' hitmaker saw Foy playing at a festival and instantly became a fan.

Foy, 46, insists that despite Ed's huge global success he is still very grounded and just a normal guy, and that's because he has so many good people around him.

Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, he said: "Ed's just a legend a full stop legend. There are few artists as big as him and few as humble. He's surrounded by his family and friends and they keep him right."

And Foy has nothing but of praise for Ed's wife Cherry Seaborn, who recently gave birth to the couple's first child, Lyra Antarctica, insisting she is the "sweetest woman".

He added: "Cherry is arguably the sweetest woman you'll ever meet in your life, honest to god, salt of the earth, he must be happy to have landed with her. Ed knows what side his breads buttered on and he grew up good."

Foy recently launched 'The Vinyl Supper' podcast and video series which has already seen the likes of A-listers Keith Urban and Courteney Cox appear as guests.

And with his album 'The Wild Swan' being executive produced by Sir Elton John, Foy shared the moment he first met the legendary musician, when he had to pinch himself that he was actually at Sir Elton's house sharing a pizza.

He shared: "I met Elton through Ed and it was a wild one really in one sense but so normal in another. I was on tour with Ed and his reality is his reality and he just happened to be going to dinner that night at Elton's house. I think he'd played Elton some of my stuff and I got invited along. People who are that prominent, certainly the nice ones, have a way of demystifying stuff very quickly and we were just talking about music that we both liked and who Elton's been on tour with. Now and then he was biting into a pizza and I was just sat there looking at him thinking, 'What are you doing eating that pizza as though you're not Elton John! What the f*** is this!?' There's Elton John sat in front of me eating a pizza!'"