Beyonce Knowles

Beyonce Knowles

Ed Sheeran thinks Beyoncé Knowles "controls all women."

The British star says no other female artist compares to the 'Pretty Hurts' hitmaker, who was named one of the world's most powerful women by Forbes magazine in May, and believes everyone wants to copy what she does.

Asked to choose between Beyoncé or Iggy Azalea, the 23-year-old 'Sing' hitmaker told Atlanta's Power 96.1 radio station: "Beyoncé controls all women. Beyoncé owns women around the world. Beyoncé just has this thing, women want to be her. They want to think like her. They want to do the things that she does."

Speaking about the surprise release of the 32-year-old singer's self-titled fifth album in December, he added: "When that album dropped, you realised how many of your mates are Beyoncé fans because I had a house party the day that it dropped--and I didn't know it was dropping, obviously all the women did--and all of the women locked themselves in a room with big speakers and listened to the album all the way through.

"There were about 16 of them. And the guys were just there drinking beer playing pool we just didn't know what was going on so we went in and they were just there [singing] 'Drunk in Love'!"