Ellie Goulding says the false rumours that she cheated on Ed Sheeran with fellow pop star Niall Horan caused her “a lot of trauma”.
In 2014, Sheeran released his song “Don’t”, which called out a former flame for sleeping with another singer while they were also involved.
Lyrics include the lines: “It’s not like we were both on tour/ We were staying on the same f***ing hotel floor/ And I wasn’t looking for a promise or commitment/ But it was never just fun and I thought you were different.”
The track prompted widespread speculation as to who Sheeran was referring to, with fans accusing Goulding of cheating on him with Horan, then a member of One Direction.
Speaking to You magazine in the Mail on Sunday, Goulding said it was “fascinating” to her that people were still interested in the rumours.
“It's fascinating how many people are interested in that. It happened nine years ago,” she told the outlet. “You know, completely honestly, it caused me a lot of trauma, actually.”
“I envy the fact that my friends just spent their twenties having flings and one-night stands and what every 20-something goes through in private. But every single thing I did was written about,” she said. “I was made to feel like a terrible person and I really struggled with that because I know I'm not.”
In the same interview, Goulding said she can laugh about it now, but at the time she became “kind of reclusive” in response to the media and public speculation.
She admitted she was “really drunk” when she replied to a TikTok user who commented on a video of her dancing to Harry Styles: “Can't believe u cheated on Ed with Niall, but slay fr (for real).”
Goulding responded: “False!!!!! But also slay.”
“I can laugh about it now but it changed things for me,” she said. “I became kind of reclusive. I didn't want to perform. That's why I wrote that comment because every day I get comments about this stupid teenage situation. It was nothing and it was private – and it caused me such a huge amount of grief and I resent it.”
She confirmed that she and Sheeran are on good terms. “It is in the past and we're friends. We're adults,” she said.
Goulding has also spoken highly of Horan, whom she briefly dated, previously calling him a “lovely guy” with a “brilliant sense of humour”.
She married Caspar Jopling in 2019 and gave birth to their first child, son Arthur, in April 2021.
Goulding will release her fifth album, Higher Than Heaven, on 24 March.
