Ellie Goulding has admitted she struggled to return to work after having her first child Arthur in 2021 and says she has lost all memory of making her first album after his birth. The singer, 39, recorded Higher Than Heaven one year after becoming a mother but says she returned to the studio before she was ready and subsequently blanked out the entire process.
Postpartum Struggles
Speaking on Later... With Jools Holland, Goulding explained: "Music and performing is the thing that keeps me going. I have two children now so the first time I went back in the studio, I was kind of a robot. I made this 2023 album called Higher Than Heaven and I don't remember it." She added: "Any woman that's had a baby can relate to that postnatal phase of, 'What the hell just happened to me?' So I wrote all this music."
The "Love Me Like You Do" hitmaker noted that someone recently heard a song from the album and thought it was AI-generated. "I was like, kind of, because I was like a robot and didn't know what I was doing for a time," she said.
A New Chapter
Now, after welcoming daughter Iris in March, Goulding says returning to work has been easier. Her upcoming album I Know Too Much is set for release on September 4, just six months after giving birth. "Now I'm much more human and I have done it already, so this time around I'm a lot more equipped to get back into that mindset," she shared.
The singer also shared intimate snaps from her latest pregnancy, including a photo of her boyfriend Beau Minniear kissing her bump as she posed naked. Goulding appears genuinely happy after divorcing husband Caspar Jopling, Arthur's father, in 2024. She previously said she thought Jopling was her partner "for life."
The Divorce Album
The upcoming record will touch upon the breakdown of their marriage, which she has playfully referred to as a 'divorce album.' Speaking of the title track, she said: "It's probably the most honest song I've written. It is what it is. I know too much. It's tongue in cheek, but it's also some kind of comment on my life so far, and music. I couldn't think of a more apt title for everything I was singing about. I do know too much. Way too much."
I Know Too Much is out September 4.
