ED SHEERAN and COURTENEY COX have been friends since 2013, and whenever he’s in L.A., he stays at her house.  And he also uses her Alexa to secretly order X-rated gifts for her.

On “The Late Late Show with James Corden”, Ed admitted that one time when Courteney left the room, he ordered a GIMP MASK . . . and when it arrived, Courteney had no idea where it came from.  So he keeps doing it.

Check out the interview where he admits this…

He said, quote, “Now when I go back there, I order her another gimp mask.  She has maybe, like, 12.  I hide them in people’s bedrooms.  So they’ll go in the drawer and find a leather S&M mask.”

He added, quote, “She had two people look at her piano to try and buy it, two absolute strangers going into her house that I found out about, so I left a couple of masks on the piano.”