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Ellie Gouldinghasn't always had the best time performing at Coachella, and it actually has nothing to do with the California music festival itself.
"Coachella one year, I had food poisoning. I was sh---ing my pants, and I still went," Goulding said in a new interview withNylon. "I had these leather shorts that had a zip up the back and front, and I thought, 'These are the worst thing for my situation right now.' I'd been performing in South America — with Lorde [real name: Ella Yelich-O'Connor], actually — and I got food poisoning."
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The singer of hits including "Lights" and "Love Me Like You Do" explained that her music career has been extremely demanding, especially in the early days.
"I remember having dinner with Ella, and I had some kind of wrap, and it all went wrong," Goulding said. "But again, I do feel now there is more in place to ensure that we're OK."
The Grammy-nominated artist used that as an example of a time when she agreed to do something even though she was physically unwell, because, as she said, female singers in the music business once "had to do everything" in order to stay in the spotlight.
"I went from never taking a flight, never being photographed, to singing at the royal wedding," said Goulding, who released her first album in 2010. "I don't think my body knew how to process the contrast between my old life and my new life, and I don't think I was equipped to deal with that amount of scrutiny, attention, and workload. I never stopped."
At the time, she said, "my body physically couldn't function well, and my throat was dead. I kept getting tonsillitis, I kept getting sick, and there was nothing in place then to ensure that I was OK."
There were instances, she said, in which she felt like she didn't have a choice.
"There were a couple of big things, like an awards performance, where I had to say no because I physically couldn't do it," Goulding said. "And I remember them being like, 'You'll never be able to perform [at the show] again.'"
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Her answer, she said, was, 'Well, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to have to die?'"
Goulding praised the "new age of vulnerability" that's being embraced throughout the industry, in which authenticity is what fans expect.
In December 2023, she noted thatartists were being better protectedin a different way, thanks to the #MeToo Movement.
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