We love a story that ends well, and this one has. British singer Ellie Goulding married Caspar Jopling in 2019, and they welcomed a son, Arthur, in 2021. Ed Sheeran married longtime girlfriend Cherry Seaborn and they have two daughters, Lyra and Jupiter. And ex-One Direction star Niall Horan has been dating girlfriend Amelia Woolley since 2021.
But, for a period of time in 2013, Ellie, Ed and Niall, three insanely talented singers in their own right, found themselves in a perceived love triangle that made headlines and allegedly inspired diss tracks.
It's a story that's captivated fans for the larger part of the decade, and it recently resurfaced when Sheeran posted a video alongside Horan singing One Direction hit 'Little Things'.
@edsheeranLast time we played this together was Madison Square Garden 2012
♬ original sound - Ed Sheeran
In the comments, fans commented, "Ellie Goulding watching this like *eye emoji*," while another wrote, "I was LITERALLY about to say are we over the 'Don't' era?!!"
If you're reading this and truly want to understand what went down in this love triangle, sit back and sip your tea because we're about to explain it to you.
But before we jump in may we just say, Ellie Goulding is certainly not the villain of this story, despite how it's previously been reported. Like many relationships that end up in the bin bag of life, it seems this messy show boils down to a simple misunderstanding.
A hand hold and a festival kiss.
In 2013, during the height of Goulding's ascension to pop icon status, she was dating (as is normal for any 26-year-old).
Except, faced with the public spotlight, her dating phase was published for all to see.
Ellie made headlines when she and Ed were spotted holding hands at the MTV Video Music Awards, but just days before she had also been spotted kissing Niall Horan at V Festival in Chelmsford, England.
When the photos of her holding hands with Ed were published she tweeted, but later deleted, "I love that holding hands with my friends means we're an item. In that case I am in many relationships."
However, it seems that Goulding's understanding of the relationship was not the same that Sheeran had.
"I mean, normal people don't hold hands if they're just friends," he told Washington radio station Click 98.9 in September that year. "It was going on. And now it's not."
Fans read into Sheeran's 'diss track'.
The situation caught headlines, but like most things, people moved on. That was until Ed Sheeran released his hit album X (Multiply), featuring the 'diss track' 'Don't'.
Fans immediately read the lyrics and assumed that they referred to the Goulding/Horan situation. And let's be honest, they're pretty brutal.
It tells the story of a girl he met who was a flight risk, so he didn't move ahead with it saying 'I'm not really looking for another mistake'. They had a fling a week later but went their separate ways 'for months', which sounds a lot like a tour…
He even sings, "But me and her, we make money the same way. Four cities, two planes, the same day."
Their paths crossed again, and that's when things really get going, with the girl in the song saying, "I was never looking for a friend." Seems… pointed, no? Then we get to the third verse.
"(Knock) on my hotel door, I don't even know if she knows what for. She was crying on my shoulder, I already told you, trust and respect is what we do this for," he sings.
"I never intended to be next (you bastard), but you didn't need to take him to bed, that's all. And I never saw him as a threat (you bastard), until you disappeared with him to have sex, of course.
"It's not like we were both on tour, we were staying on the same f**king hotel floor, and I wasn't looking for a promise or commitment, but it was never just fun, and I thought you were different."
Yep, he did not hold back.
Once the song was released, British tabloids naturally reported that the song was about the Goulding/Horan love triangle. However, Ed later said, "I never let it slip [who the song was about]. What happened was one of the newspapers in England just printed that it was confirmed when it never was."
The fallout.
If we assume, as many do, that 'Don't' is about Goulding, it does all sound a bit messy. However, the fallout from this particular moment was much worse than a silly mistake in your 20's should be.
The year following the release of 'Don't', Goulding did an with ELLE UK, where she said that her and Sheeran never had a relationship.
"I did go on a few dates with Niall [Horan], but I was never in a relationship with Ed [Sheeran]," she told the publication.
"I have absolutely no idea where that came from and why it was turned into such a big thing."
Goulding went on to criticise the way she had been characterised in the press, noting that it is something that tends to happen to women more than men.
"I find it so frustrating that female musicians are constantly defined by the men they have or haven't dated," she said. "It's something I've talked about with Taylor [Swift] a lot. She definitely feels that. She gets bothered by it.
"It's like, you can be a great artist, you can write great songs, but the thing that everyone is going to talk about is some relationship they think you have had or not had. It's definitely something we both think happens to female artists over male artists."
In late 2015, Goulding released her hit song 'On My Mind', which quickly rose to the top of the charts. Fans thought it may have been a retaliation track for 'Don't', given one of the main lyrics is, "You don't mess with love, you mess with the truth," which sounds like an echo of Sheeran's 'Don't f**ck with my love."
However, she has since confirmed that On My Mind' is not about Sheeran.
On Niall Horan, she told Seventeen the following year, "We're still friends.
"We went on a few dates, and it was really fun. He's a really, really lovely guy. He's got the biggest sense of humour, he's very caring, and I see him as a genuine friend in the industry."
The impact.
Regardless of who you believe in this situation, it was Goulding who was right about women being targeted when their love life becomes a bigger story than their discography.
In February 2023, Goulding gave an interview to the Daily Mail, talking about how the love triangle impacted her career.
"It's fascinating how many people are interested in that. It happened nine years ago," she told the outlet. "You know, completely honestly, it caused me a lot of trauma, actually."
"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," she said. "I was made to feel like a terrible person and I really struggled with that because I know I'm not."
The interview came soon after Goulding had commented on a post about their reported love triangle. She responded to a TikTok comment with "False!!!"
When asked about the response she said, "I think I was really drunk when I wrote that, yeah."
She said the scrutiny was the reason behind her five-year hiatus between Delirium (2015) and Brightest Blue (2020).
"I can laugh about it now but it changed things for me," she 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."
It seems that even Goulding and Sheeran have quashed any beef, with her saying, "It is in the past and we're friends. We're adults."
She told The Independent, reported via Metro, about her comment on the TikTok, "I shouldn't give in to that. For me to think that the right thing is to respond to rumours, knowing that in real life there aren't just 'heroes' and 'villains' like there are in the fake world of social media and tabloids.
"I think that the best thing for me is to stay in the real world... but sometimes you just gotta – occasionally; every, like, five years or so – put something out there."
And there you have it, a full dissection of the drama of the 2013's, when statement owl necklaces and slogan t-shirts were all the rage.
Now, go pop on some 'Clarity' by Zedd or 'Anything Can Happen' by Goulding, in honour of the vibes of the 2010s.
Featured image: Getty/Canva.
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