Watch Paparazzi

Singer Ed Sheeran spotted wearing Richard Mille

At the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, Ed Sheeran arrived with more than chart-topping credentials on his wrist. Photographers caught the British singer sporting a White Quartz TPT Richard Mille RM38-01 Manual Winding Tourbillon G-Sensor from the Bubba Watson Collection — a piece limited to just 50 examples worldwide and priced in the UK at £750,000 list.

The RM38-01 was developed alongside two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson as a direct successor to the RM38-02, with the explicit brief of measuring G-forces experienced during a golf swing — forces that can exceed 100G at the club head. Richard Mille engineers integrated a dedicated G-sensor complication into the manually wound movement, which also features a tourbillon regulator running at 21,600 vph. The result is a caliber of genuine functional complexity, not decorative excess. The WhiteQuez TPT case — formed from layers of quartz filaments infused with a white resin matrix and compressed under extreme heat — gives each of the 50 pieces a unique internal topography, making every watch visually one-of-a-kind.

For collectors, the Richard Mille RM38-01 in White Quartz TPT occupies a rarefied tier even within the brand's deliberately limited output. The Bubba Watson series has historically commanded serious secondary-market premiums; the combination of a functional sports complication, a 50-piece production ceiling, and an exotic case material places the RM38-01 White Quartz TPT among the most sought-after references in the modern Richard Mille catalog.

Sheeran's watch choices have long reflected a collector's instinct rather than a stylist's brief. The singer has been photographed in a range of high-complication pieces across different occasions, and his appearance at the VMAs with the RM38-01 underscored a willingness to wear genuinely significant horology in contexts where most celebrities default to decoration over substance.

On the grey market, examples of the Richard Mille RM38-01 from the Bubba Watson Collection — particularly in White Quartz TPT — rarely surface, and when they do, prices reflect both scarcity and sustained collector demand. With an original UK list price of £750,000, secondary transactions have historically exceeded retail, placing this reference well into seven-figure territory in USD terms at peak market conditions.