News

Ed Sheeran takes on the role of Starbucks barista to promote his new album

A maneuver that generated controversy among the local employees, being described as 'downright shameful'.

Click here to read the Spanish version.

Working in the restaurant industry seems to have become the biggest marketing or public relations strategy in stardom. A controversial and enigmatic gastronomic trend that celebrities are worshipping, gaining more and more followers as if it were a social experiment of the elite.

Ed Sheeran, who already joined this mysterious and disturbing trend that is already part of the global pop culture when he started delivering hot dogs at The Wieners Circle, now returns to star in another gastronomic episode, but for a new chain.

With autumn already about to fall, the British singer is syncing up with the season to release ‘Autumn Variations‘, his seventh studio album, which will be released on September 29 and will include 14 tracks. Meanwhile, Starbucks is now introducing the Starbucks ‘Pumpkin Spice Latte‘, which will be back on Sept. 23, the first real day of fall.

All this becomes the framework or context of this action that Sheeran, who put on the Starbucks uniform to prepare ‘Pumpkin Spice Lattes’ and promote his new album, carried out.

‘Launching the Pumpkin Spice Latte to celebrate the Autumn Variations announcement here in Seattle’, Sheeran wrote on Instagram. ‘Thanks for having me @starbucks, if you gave me your name I gave you a new one, because I’m the barista of joy. Fall is coming, September 29.’

However, the singer could have done a little more research before showing up at that particular Seattle Starbucks. And that’s because, as it turns out, this establishment has been the subject of several union tactics. Sheeran’s shift then caught the attention of Starbucks Workers United (a labor union), which denounced him on X (formerly Twitter).

‘Ed Sheeran working a shift at a Starbucks store in Seattle that faced massive union repression is straight up embarrassing,’ tweeted the organization.

Starbucks Workers United provided even more information about what makes Sheeran’s visit even more ‘disappointing’: ‘Not to mention that almost all of the ‘workers’ seen in that photo wearing a green apron are managers, not baristas. And, meanwhile, the workers at the Starbucks store down the street were drowning because they were severely understaffed due to cutbacks in hours,’ they wrote.