Ellie Goulding has opened up about her issues with alcohol and anger, admitting she used to drink before many of her interviews because she no longer knew what her real personality was.
Speaking to Fearne Cotton’s podcast Happy Place, Goulding said she would also drink before appearing on Radio 1’s Live Lounge shows in the morning.
Goulding said: “I assumed I couldn’t be good enough, smart, funny, or crazy enough to be with certain people without alcohol.”
Calling her fame “a surreal situation”, Goulding added: “I’d say, ‘Right, I’ve got to drink this morning because I’ve got this interview and I don’t really know how to answer the questions, because I don’t really know who I am any more.’ I thought drinking would at least make me a bit more funny, or interesting.”
Of her drinking before going on Live Lounge, Goulding said: “Live Lounges used to be the most nerve-wracking, I even drank before those.”
The singer denied she had ever been an alcoholic, however. She said: “I wasn’t an alcoholic. I could go months without a drink, too.”
Goulding also told Cotton about her battles to control her anger, believing that her marriage to husband Casper Jopling had eased them. She said: “When I met Caspar, this anger thing just went away. At first it didn’t. I did that thing we all do when we first meet someone you really like and you don’t possibly show any of your bad traits. With Caspar I instantly felt calmer.”
Following the release of her fourth album ‘Delirium’ in 2015, Goulding announced the following year that she was taking a break from music.
She has recently been returning to making music, releasing the singles ‘Flux’ and ‘Sixteen’, as well as Juice Wrld collaboration ‘Hate Me’.