The reinvention of Ellie Goulding: People used to think I was boring ... not any more

First there was the insecure indie girl from Herefordshire hiding under a hoodie. Then there was the Royal Wedding singer and everyone’s favourite girl-next-door. Now there’s the stadium-filling diva who wears shorter hot pants than Kylie, has sold 19 million records and hangs out with Katy Perry and Ellen. Stephanie Rafanelli finds out how Ellie Goulding finally became comfortable in her own skin
Ellie Goulding in Stella McCartney dress

Five years ago, Ellie Goulding unleashed her angelic, tortured and breathy vibrato on to the audience of Later... With Jools Holland. And me. In a worn, shapeless T-shirt (the kind you wear on hangover days), her face partly obscured by a black hoodie, she poured the vocals of ‘Under the Sheets’, from her debut album Lights, into the mic while pounding furiously on a single drum. Unique voice, but just another indie girl, I thought. I was in a bad mood, having turned up to see Jack White’s The Dead Weather on the wrong night.

Two Brit Awards and 19 million record sales later, and I’m drinking a gin and tonic with Goulding at a hotel in Bethnal Green. ‘People used to think I was boring. Not any more,’ she says, peering out from two sets of arachnoid eyelashes that have been heavily mascaraed for the preceding cover shoot. ‘Because I used to emphasise the fact that I was athletic, I like running, not the fact that I drink and smoke.’ The voice is the same: hoarse, rich, throaty. But the presence has changed. She is notably slicker, raunchier; less of the timid, plaid shirt-clad singer-songwriter, more the commanding commercial pop diva of the tightly produced dance anthems of Halcyon Days (the re-release of her second album, 2012’s Halycon, which went to number one in January). I note several bar staff check her out. Even in her demob gear (a fisherman’s sweater and leather trousers) she is surprisingly sexy, more womanly than most 27-year-olds: all matte vanilla mane and runner’s legs. At her O2 gig in March, she emerged regally on stage in a gold-corseted flesh-coloured body stocking worthy of Gaga (albeit on a low-key day).

Whether all this is the natural progression of a female artist growing in self-conviction, or a manufactured image overhaul, a further cranking up of Goulding as a global brand, is the subject of much debate. ‘Women’s confidence grows with age...’ she tells me, a little nervously. ‘When I’m on stage, I sweat like a mother****er. It’s like a workout. I need to keep cool. I’m not out to look sexy.’ Hmmm.

Others attribute the partial Beyoncéfication of Goulding to the company she’s been keeping of late. Her US tours have led to inevitable mingling with her Stateside peers (Halcyon went to number nine in the US charts), and she has fallen in with a set that includes Katy Perry — whom she supported on her California Dreams tour — Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. She has played the musical field in other ways, too. Since the break-up with her long-term boyfriend, Radio 1 DJ Greg James, in 2012, about which she wrote Halycon, she has been linked to Ed Sheeran and One Direction’s Niall Horan. She is now the official girlfriend of Dougie Poynter, the bassist from McBusted (a hybrid band of artists from McFly and Busted), and former I’m a Celebrity victor. ‘I’m sick of pretending that nothing is going on,’ she says, before erupting in a eulogy to his band’s live performances. ‘I don’t want to not be myself with him because I’m scared of us being photographed.’ Ellen DeGeneres loves her: she’s been on the show three times. She’s even friends with the odd Hollywood star, including, rather randomly, Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul. If she was once considered anodyne, she’s not any more. Today, over three million people follow her on Twitter.

None of this would be so astonishing but for her wholesome associations on home turf: the John Lewis 2010 Christmas ad, which featured her cover of Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ from Lights (it also went to number one); the performance of the same song, at Prince William’s personal behest, at the reception of the Royal Wedding; her appearance in the M&S campaign shot by Annie Leibowitz alongside Darcey Bussell and Helen Mirren. They’re not the most rock’n’roll British brands.

Ellie Goulding in Lanvin dress and shoes, with Acne Studios coat

Still, the clean-living, patriotic overtones have hitherto worked for her, as record sales in the UK attest. After all, Goulding is a British winner, the apotheosis of tabloid heroine: a working-class girl from a council estate in Herefordshire who remembers bailiffs removing the family television set, who went on to sing for both Queen Elizabeth at the Palace and Barack Obama at the White House. It helps with the dramatic narrative arc that she’s also had to overcome herself along the way.

There is more to her ‘growing confidence’ plea than just defensive media training. Her new self-possession is also the prize of a long, hard-fought internal battle. I sense a buoyancy to Goulding, of someone who has ‘let go’ recently — not least the heavy, protective wall of her extensions (her real hair is now shoulder-length). ‘At one time, I was getting all this musical success, but I wasn’t getting all the things that went with it, like magazine covers. I was convinced for a long time I wasn’t aesthetically pleasing enough,’ she says, looking much younger for a second. ‘I would have to angle my face to hide the side of my nose, or my chin.’ She demonstrates the camouflaging poses. ‘Then I stopped caring. I let go. Put a different energy out there — then [the covers] all started to happen.’

I feel sorry that someone who was once riddled with so much doubt about her looks should have to endure so much corporal scrutiny. When I say this, she brings up the comments on Twitter after she appeared on The X Factor in a sheer Julien Macdonald dress last October. This is one thing she hasn’t let go of yet. ‘They said my body was “too athletic”.Too athletic?’ Goulding is enviably ripped. She used to run six miles a day, but now prefers circuit training, power jumps and squats that can ‘design your body the way you want it’. ‘Isn’t it admirable that someone has worked so hard to look good and be healthy?’

Goulding has always worked hard on herself. Her guiding philosophy from a young age seems to have been one of self-betterment. She grew up on a council estate in Lyonshall, near Hereford, with her mother, Tracey, a supermarket worker, who hung out with the likes of Siouxsie Sioux. Her father, an undertaker who was also a guitarist, walked out when she was five: a cataclysmic event that would both drive and overshadow her for years.

She poured her grief into writing poems and songs. Goulding was musically inclined from an early age. She joined the local operatic society, and practised her soprano-range scales and her clarinet in her bedroom, which she shared with two of her three siblings. She says her mum found it pretty annoying: ‘I wasn’t given much encouragement when I was young. My mum was quite tough love. But I think it gave me a good start. I was never sure if I had a talent or would be famous.’

Although she briefly dyed her hair black and became a goth when she was 14, Goulding was always focused: a straight ‘A’ student (she studied English, Politics and Drama at A-level at Lady Hawkins’ School) who knew that graft, intelligence and the dexterity of her own voice were her tickets out. ‘I was obsessed with well-spoken people, period dramas and the news. I got clued into how I could change my singing voice from Destiny’s Child to opera, so I learned I could change my speaking voice too.’ Today, she could be mistaken for an alumna of a public school.

Goulding wanted to work in theatre. By 18, she had moved in with Matt, a 32-year-old sound engineer who encouraged her to apply to study drama at Kent University. (Lights is dedicated to ‘Matthew, who found and saved me’.) It was here, at an open mic talent contest two years later, that she was discovered by Jamie Lillywhite, son of music producer Steve Lillywhite, her future manager, who persuaded her to leave university to pursue music. In 2009 she was signed by Polydor, and won the Critic’s Choice Award at the Brits in 2010 for her debut album, Lights.

Ellie Goulding in Dsquared2 dress

But there was more to overcome. In the first year of her success, Goulding had panic attacks (one so severe it led to hospitalisation), unable to reconcile herself to the giant and sudden leap in her circumstances that her ambition had fuelled. She was plagued by a persistent fear of disaster. ‘I thought, “How am I here? Why do I deserve this?” I couldn’t believe in the good things happening to me. I would be waiting for the universe to deliver the bad thing that would take it all back.’

She was helped by a period in therapy. I ask her if she feels now that she was suffering from Impostor Syndrome (the feeling that you are a fraud) because of her background, and the lack of fundamental security of her father’s love? She pauses, looking momentarily torn between outpouring and holding back. ‘It’s very easy not to believe that you got yourself into this remarkable place because you are a creative person... But as an artist, when you stop believing in yourself you’re ****ing screwed. If I suddenly think, “I can’t write a song,” everything crumbles. So at some point you have to believe in yourself. Even if you’re faking it... whatever works.’

Goulding has not had any contact with her father since she was 19. He has never congratulated her on her success. The song ‘I Know You Care’, on Halcyon, was written for him: a very public message of love that he has hitherto never responded to. I ask if her father’s absence still pervades everything she does: ‘It’s something that’s not really going to go away.’ She bats me away gently. ‘But it’s a very different feeling now. It used to be one of anger, bitterness. Now it’s slight confusion and intrigue. I’m at peace with it.’ This newfound sanguinity has helped her let go of other men in her life, too. ‘In the past, I felt that there was a part of me that was a bit more reliant on having someone around. I wasn’t close to my dad, or at the time, my mum, so I put the onus on my relationship. I’m over that. It feels great to be with someone without needing them...’ She can’t contain a grin.

It’s good to see her so in love but a bit of a shame, creatively speaking. A happy, peaceful place is not always the most fertile headspace for an artist; after a round of summer festivals, she has a third album looming. ‘I write songs when I’m sad...’ She stops. Then switches into therapy-speak. ‘You’re in a good place, you live in the present, no longer constantly thinking about the past (“I can’t believe my dad left me”) or the future (“Is my third album going to be successful?”). But I’ve come to terms with the fact that what I do as an artist depends on me being very sad and reflective.’ Her brown eyes soften under those monster spider lashes. ‘So whatever philosophy I follow, or calming influences I find, nothing should touch that.’

Halcyon Days is out now

Thanks to Town Hall Hotel, Patriot Square, E2 (020 7871 0460; townhallhotel.com)

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