Ellie Goulding says rumors she cheated on Ed Sheeran with Niall Horan caused 'a lot of trauma'

• Ellie Goulding addressed rumors that she cheated on Ed Sheeran with Niall Horan.
• Fans have speculated Sheeran's song, "Don't," is about Goulding.
• Goulding said that the rumors weren't true but caused "a lot of trauma."

Ellie Goulding said she experienced "a lot of trauma" over rumors that she cheated on Ed Sheeran with Niall Horan.

The rumors began after Sheeran's 2014 hit song "Don't," which many fans thought was about Sheeran's relationship with Goulding.

Last month, Goulding shut down a fan who commented on the rumor on one of her TikTok posts, telling the fan that it was false.

In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, Goulding spoke about how the rumor affected her career.

"I think I was really drunk when I wrote that [TikTok comment]," she said. "It's fascinating how many people are interested in that. It happened nine years ago."

The "Burn" singer said that she defends Sheeran's right to use what he wants as inspiration for his songs but she never dated the pop star.

"You know, completely honestly, it caused me a huge amount of… stress is not the word. It caused me a lot of trauma, actually," Goulding told the publication. "How old were we, 23? I envy the fact that my friends just spent their 20s having flings and one-night stands and what every 20-something goes through in private. But every single thing I did was written about. I was made to feel like a terrible person and I really struggled with that because I know I'm not."

Goulding said the scrutiny damaged her career and caused her to take a five-year hiatus between her third album, "Delirium," and her 2020 album "Brightest Blue."

"I can laugh about it now but it changed things for me," Goulding said. "I became kind of reclusive. I didn't want to perform. That's why I wrote that comment because every day I get comments about this stupid teenage situation. It was nothing and it was private — and it caused me such a huge amount of grief and I resent it."

Goulding added that she has made up with Sheeran: "It is in the past and we're friends. We're adults."

Goulding and Horan first sparked romance rumors in August 2013 when The Mirror reported that the two were spotted showing PDA at the V Festival in England.

However, a week later, Goulding and Sheeran were seen on camera holding hands at the MTV VMAs. While Goulding tweeted they were just friends, Sheeran told Seattle radio show "Clock 98.9" a month later that "normal people don't hold hands if they're just friends," but they had since broken up.

The cheating rumors were made worse a year later with the release of "Don't," which fans speculated was about Goulding cheating on him.

Sheeran told Entertainment Weekly in 2015 that he "never actually confirmed" it was about Horan and Goulding but a British newspaper printed it and other newspapers ran with the story.

"We got in touch, and they took the story down," he said. "But obviously the damage had already been done by that point because every other newspaper picked up on it."

Goulding has never admitted to dating Sheeran but said she did date Horan.

The "Burn" singer told ELLE UK in 2015: "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."