Fans of Ed Sheeran should stop rallying against Ellie Goulding. When the British redhead, 24, released his 2014 hit “Don’t,” about a girl who led him on before having sex with someone else, many immediately pointed to Goulding as the girl in question.
“I did go on a few dates with Niall [Horan] but I was never in a relationship with Ed [Sheeran],” the “Burn” songstress, 28, revealed in Elle UK. “I have absolutely no idea where that came from and why it was turned into such a big thing.”
In the tune, Sheeran indicated that the girl was a fellow musician with the lyrics, “me and her, we make money the same way,” and later added, “I never intended to be next, but you didn’t need to take him to bed, that’s all. And I never saw him as a threat, until you disappeared with him to sex, of course.”
Sheeran himself said that he dated Goulding after the pair were caught holding hands at the 2013 MTV VMAs.
“I mean, normal people don’t hold hands if they’re just friends,” he said in a radio interview at the time. “It was going on. And now it’s not.”
Though she is willing to talk about her dating history, Goulding finds it annoying that her relationships are often focused on.
“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 a lot,” she said, referring to “Blank Space” singer Taylor Swift, who is also pals with Sheeran. “She definitely feels that. She gets bothered by it. 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.”
But that didn’t stop her from gushing about her new boyfriend, musician Dougie Poynter, whom she began dating in February.
“He is definitely the one forever,” she said. “When I was a teenager, I fancied him but I thought he was so out of my league. Way too good-looking for me. Calvin Harris has already offered to play at our wedding. Not that we’ve organized one. But the offer has been made,” she added of DJ pal (and Swift’s current boyfriend) Harris.
