#GingersUnite
Today, October 10, is World Mental Health Day. Its objective is to raise awareness across the globe about mental health issues and to help educate people on the resources available to them, as well as to encourage conversations amongst friends.
And to help bring awareness to the day, Prince Harry and Ed Sheeran have teamed up on a hilarious 90-second video.
The video begins with Sheeran telling the camera that Prince Harry contacted him about doing a charity video. “I’ve long admired him, from afar,” the Grammy Award winner says. Cut to Sheeran ringing Prince Harry’s doorbell (which is very elaborate might we add) and heading inside.
The pair sit down at a table and Prince Harry comments that he feels the subject is one “that’s not talked about enough, and that people all over the world are really suffering.” Sheeran then admits he’s been working on a song for this occasion, saying, “People just don’t understand what it’s like for people like us” in reference to redheads. Harry then corrects him saying the meeting is about World Mental Health Day, to which a sheepish Sheeran responds by deleting the notes on his PowerPoint slide with the headline “GINGERS UNITE”. The slide underneath reads: “HRH Prince Harry and the king of ging Ed Sheeran get together to change the perception of people with Moroccan sunset hair.” (Which is definitely the way any redhead should refer to themselves from now on).
The hilarious clip ends with Ed and Harry sitting side by side on a couch as Harry says, “This World Mental Health Day reach out, make sure that your friends, strangers, look out for anybody that might be suffering in silence, we’re all in this together.”
It’s a cause incredibly close to the royal family, with Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate Middleton having started mental health charity Heads Together in the UK back in 2016. The Fab Four also recently took part in a new ad for the NHS to promote World Mental Health Day (Kate, William, Harry and Meghan’s voices were used as part of the campaign), and there was so much traffic to the site that it crashed.
If you, or anyone you know, needs support, see our guide to affordable mental health care across Canada. You are not in this alone.