Ellie Goulding Covers ‘Cosmopolitan UK,’ Talks Dating, Music & Taylor Swift

Well! Ellie Goulding is on the cover of the January issue of Cosmopolitan UK, showing some skin in a sparkly cocktail dress and talking about how she “beat self-doubt” (among other things), and it’s a nice little interview! Goulding sounds self-possessed and grown and all of that is important. “I feel very independent and feminist right now — I think maybe it’s being single,” she says.

She talks less about music (there’s no mention on new tunes on the way, unfortunately) and more about her personal life — specifically, her relationships with ex-boyfriends Greg James (a Radio 1 DJ) and Skrillex — the latter of whom she says she wrote “Anything Could Happen” about because she wasn’t expecting to fall for him, which is quite sweet!

As for some solid gossip, she offers it in the form of her take on her close friends — she lists Rita Ora (“She’s got a really good outlook on life”), Cara Delevingne (“We relate to each other”) and Taylor Swift as people she can count on. “Me and Taylor [Swift] are similar in that we write about relationships, and we joke about that. We text and sometimes I only have to say one thing, and even if it’s cryptic she gets it. She’s an inspiration to me because she reinstated how honest you can be about a boy in your music. I thought maybe I should stop being so explicit at one point, then I slapped myself out of that: I’m always going to write about people.”

Be forewarned, exes: You’re not safe on either side of the pond.

See her full shoot over at Cosmopolitan UK.

Get an eyeful of even more pop music coverage, from artist interviews to exclusive performances, on Idolator’s YouTube channel.