Ed Sheeran, multi-million-selling pop artist, unlikely friend to small girls and grime artists alike and Glastonbury headliner, has had his fair share of unusual scrapes. Lest we forget, he has a scar on his cheek from the time Princess Beatrice reportedly sliced him across the face with a ceremonial sword.

Sheeran has now revealed that he also inflicts injury on famous people with long metal objects, however. Appearing for the first time in James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke (remarkably, he has never appeared in Corden’s not-actually-moving car before), the Framlingham-raised singer admitted that he smacked international pop star Justin Bieber across the face with a golf club.

Sheeran said that after a recent session in a “really, really filthy dive bar” in Tokyo with Bieber, who was unaccosted by his security, the pair of global chart-toppers “ended up at this golf course”, whereupon Bieber put a golf ball in his mouth.

“He said, ‘Go on! Hit it out!’,” Sheeran recalled, “I was pretty hammered, and I was like, ‘focus, focus, you can’t hit him, you can’t hit him’. And I had this driving wedge, and I cracked him across the face”.

Justin Bieber during the One Love Manchester concert

Sheeran reported that Bieber was “actually really cool” about being hit around his face, which is used to endorse products such as Calvin Klein underwear.

Sheeran then celebrated the pair’s activities by singing Love Yourself, a song he wrote for Bieber.

As has become Carpool Karaoke tradition, the singer also performed a few of his own hits, such as Thinking Out Loud and Sing, as well as One Direction debut single, You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful.

He also revealed what he believes is the root of his musical talent: “I was quite an unfortunate-looking kid,” he told Corden. “I felt like God was looking down at me and thought, ‘You need help getting laid, kid'”.

The special UK episodes of The Late Late Show with James Corden 7-9 June available only on Sky 1 and NOW TV