Cradle of Filth is going through some lineup changes, and Ed Sheeran caught a stray in the drama.
On Sunday, keyboardist and backing vocalist Zoe Marie Federoff announced that she was leaving Cradle of Filth amid the extreme metal band’s ongoing tour of South America. Then on Tuesday, guitarist Marek “Ashok” Šmerda, who is married to Federoff, announced that he too was leaving Cradle, but planned to stick with the band through the end of the tour.
“We simply do not feel like Cradle can provide for our future, and in fact hinders it,” Šmerda wrote, citing high stress and “a lot of work for relatively low pay.”
Šmerda then brought up Cradle’s long-in-the-works collab with Sheeran, which was born out of the pop star sharing his love for metal in a 2021 interview.
“I have also asked all compositions of mine removed from upcoming releases including Ed Sheeran collab,” Šmerda writes. “This song feels like foolish clown antics for me at this point anyways- first it was charity single for kids, then for profit single, then on next album, and now who knows and I just do not want to be involved anymore, no disrespect to Ed Sheeran.”
Federoff also posted a follow-up statement calling the Cradle environment “toxic and threatening,” so much so that she miscarried a pregnancy on tour.
Meanwhile, Cradle frontman Dani Filth has responded by announcing that Šmerda has been immediately fired and will not play out the remaining tour dates.
“Thank you for your understanding in this horrible matter, we are all in a state of shock over proceedings and will share our side to these unfortunate events in due course,” Filth writes.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
