Ellie Goulding believes the music industry has changed for the better in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
The “Love Me Like You Do” singer, 36, reflected on some of the uncomfortable experiences that she faced in her career working with male producers and shared how her record label, Polydor, has undertaken efforts to better protect younger artists following the movement while guest editing BBC Radio 4’s Today broadcast on Thursday.
“I definitely think the landscape has changed a bit, especially since the #MeToo movement,” Goulding said. “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.”
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The Brit Award winner and 2024 Grammy nominee explained that she didn’t think “a lot of people felt comfortable” enough to talk about their experiences before #MeToo, which began after multiple women accused disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. He was later found guilty of rape in two separate trials in Los Angeles and New York.
“I had experiences which, in my head, I sort of normalized and thought, ‘Oh, maybe this is just a thing,’” the musician told Radio 4.
Goulding recalled that feeling like there was an “expectation” when working with male producers. “Which sounds mad for me to say out loud, and it definitely wouldn’t happen now,” she said. “I mean, very rarely, because things have just really changed.”
She said one such situation was when producers would “ask if you want to go for a drink.” Goulding, who described herself as someone who doesn’t “like disappointing people,” said that she’d agree to go only for the situation to become “like a romantic thing when it shouldn’t.”
“You don’t want it to be a romantic thing,” she continued, “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.”
It made Goulding question everything. “I had to try and figure out whether it was just something going on in my head, and that I just had that general sense of fear anyway in myself,” she said. “But then, hearing so many other similar stories from other female musicians and singers, I realized I wasn’t alone in it at all. It wasn’t just me, being particularly friendly.”
Now, Goulding said that her record label makes sure its younger artists “have chaperones when they go to the studio” and can “speak to a counselor or speak to someone about their experience as an up-and-coming musician.”
It’s an important protection because, as she noted, artists writing in the recording studio can be in a very “vulnerable place.” She added, “I’ve definitely felt like it can be an unsafe place for people.”
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