Ellie Goulding recalls feeling ‘vulnerable’ in male-dominated music industry

Goulding, 36, credited the #MeToo movement for steering industry towards awareness around workplace conduct

Ellie Goulding has admitted she felt “vulnerable” working in studios with male producers during the early days of her career.

Goulding, 36, opened up about the pressures of being a woman in a male-dominated industry during BBC Radio 4’s breakfast show Today on Thursday (28 December), explaining she felt unwanted sexual advances were a “kind of currency” when she was just starting out.

The “Love Me Like You Do” hitmaker, who guest-edited Thursday’s programme, recalled “normalising” these experiences because it was “a sort of unspoken thing” that happened while working with men in the music industry.

Goulding said: “You don’t want it to be a romantic thing, but it’s like there was always a slight feeling of discomfort when you walked into a studio and it was just one or two men writing or producing.

“And I had to try and figure out whether it was just me, something going on in my own head. But then hearing so many other stories, similar stories from other female musicians and singers, I realised that I wasn’t alone in it at all. It wasn’t just me, being particularly friendly,” she continued.

During an interaction with music students at her old sixth form college in Hereford, Goulding recalled “purposefully” dressing in baggy clothes when she went to the studio because “I wanted to be there for work”.

She added: “When I used to work in the studios it was very obvious that I was a woman – to me – with mostly men around me and it was quite intimidating.”

Ellie Goulding (Filmico / WWF UK)

Goulding acknowleged that “the landscape has changed a bit” especially in the wake of the #MeToo movement, adding that it was “really, really important” for people to share their individual stories to shed light on what, she said, was a widespread problem within the industry.

“I think that was really, really important for people to keep speaking out about their individual stories, because I know a lot was happening and just wasn’t being talked about,” Goulding explained. “I don’t think a lot of people felt comfortable to talk about their personal studio experiences.”

Goulding noticed a ‘palpable change’ in the music industry after the #MeToo movement (2023 Invision)

Goulding previously told The Independent there has been a “palpable change” in the industry since the #MeToo movement in 2017 after sexual abuse allegations against disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein came to light.

During Thursday’s Today programme, Goulding, who has advocated for greater protections for female artists in the industry, shared that younger artists at her record label have chaperones when they go to the studio.

“And they also have a chance to speak to a counsellor or speak to someone about about their experience as an up-and-coming musician.

“It’s a vulnerable place when you’re in a studio writing music,” she added.

Elsewhere, Goulding, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said spending time in nature helped alleviate her symptoms of postnatal depression after the birth of her son Arthur, two, during the pandemic.

She said: “I struggled with postnatal depression and the only thing that would make me feel better, other than a really big cuddle with my son, was putting a coat on – even if it was just over my pyjamas – and I would walk out into a field and I would start to feel some kind of life come back into me, the numbness started to ease off.”