Ed Sheeran was a surprise special guest at the Pokémon World Championships this weekend, where he performed the classic Pokémon theme live.
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The 2026 Pokémon World Championships took place at San Francisco’s Chase Center this weekend (August 28 – 30) with people competing in the official Video Game Championships as well as the official trading card game, Pokémon Go and Unite.
On Sunday, spectators were treated to a surprise performance from Ed Sheeran, who took to the stage to perform his 2022 Pokémon Scarlet & Violet anthem ‘Celestial’ before an acoustic run-through of the original theme for the anime. Check out fan-shot footage of the moment before.
Ed Sheeran sings the Pokémon Theme Song in a surprise performance after the Pokémon Worlds closing ceremony in San Francisco#PokemonWorlds #PokemonXP pic.twitter.com/mHW7goksAP
— Maddox @ Worlds (@MaddoxTCG) August 31, 2026
Holy.. Ed Sheeran is here signing the Pokémon theme song pic.twitter.com/stwDNgGCVo
— spragels The Content Cowboy (@spragels) August 31, 2026
“I’ve played Pokémon since I was in primary school,” Sheeran said back in 2022 to promote the release of ‘Celestial’. “Me and my brother used to have different versions of the games and would trade Pokémon together until we each completed our Pokédex. I loved the cards but the games are what I lost myself in. I loved the whole world they created; it kept me distracted if there was negative stuff happening in my life/school that I wanted to avoid. It was a world I could escape into and I’ve played it ever since.”
Earlier this year, Sheeran was praised for turning down a collab with Fortnite because it didn’t feel authentic. “Whenever you see my face near any product, I want it to be something I actually do,” he said during an interview on the Warne’s Way podcast. “Like ketchup, I fucking love ketchup. Guitars, I play the guitars I play. The reason I’m here today is because I’m launching a speaker with Orange, and I’ve used Orange amps for years. It has to be real. And so when my record company were like ‘oh, we can put you in Fortnite’, I was like ‘I don’t really want to do that’. I don’t play Fortnite but I do play Pokémon, so we contacted The Pokémon Company.”
Elsewhere during the Pokémon World Championship, brand new animated movie Wild Card was announced. It’ll hit cinemas “soon” and tells “the exciting story of a Pokémon TCG player and his partner Mimikyu”. Fans were also given their first look at stop-motion Disney+ series The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu which was created by Wallace & Gromit studio Aardman.
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