Ellie Goulding has, once and for all, put to rest the rumors that she cheated on Ed Sheerhan with Niall Horan.
Ed Sheerhan’s song, “Don’t”, was rumored to be about just such a situation with Ellie Goulding.
But the truth is, Ellie Goulding never even dated Ed Sheerhan.
Ellie Goulding explained, “I did go on a few dates with Niall, but I was never in a relationship with Ed. I have absolutely no idea where that came from and why it was turned into such a big thing.”
Ed Sheerhan thinks he knows where the rumor came from. When asked by Entertainment Weekly if he regretted letting it slip that the song was about Ellie Goulding, he tried to set the record straight.
He said, “I never let it slip. What happened was one of the newspapers in England just printed that it was confirmed when it never was.”
He added, “We got in touch, and they took the story down. But obviously the damage had already been done by that point because every other newspaper picked up on it. So I never actually confirmed it.”
Ellie Goulding isn’t just upset about this one rampant misconception. She’s irritated that women in music are so often defined by who they date.
She said, “I find it so frustrating that female musicians are constantly defined by the men they have or haven’t dated. It’s something I’ve talked about with Taylor [Swift] a lot. She definitely feels that. She gets bothered by it.”
She added, “It’s like, you can be a great artist, you can write great songs, but the thing that everyone is going to talk about is some relationship they think you have had or not had. It’s definitely something we both think happens to female artists over male artists.”
Do you think Ellie Goulding is right about women musicians being defined by who they date?