Ed Sheeran could not fight back the tears as he spoke to a Liberian child who lost her father during the Ebola crisis.

The Shape Of You star was visiting the country in aid of Comic Relief when he met Peaches and shared a song with her.

But hearing her sing and tell him about her family’s sad story, which meant she had to leave school to support her mother, left the 26-year-old in tears.

In a short film made of his trip, he said: “The last thing I wanted this trip to be was the celebrity who goes to Africa and cries on TV, I really wanted to come and be like, “Everything’s positive, everything’s great.””

He welled up again as he explained: “Singing with that girl… her dad taught her how to sing and she just got really choked up about it.

“I watch Comic Relief every single year and this is what celebrities do and I always think, ‘but is it really that bad?’ then I turn up and, yes, it is.”

The singer added an appeal for viewers to support children’s education in Liberia alongside Red Nose Day.