Eco Ellie: I lose fans over climate activism
Ellie Goulding believes her green campaigning has damaged her career.
The singer – a UN environment ambassador – admits she had reservations before first speaking out on global warming because she feared it would hurt her music industry prospects.
“I genuinely thought that the activism would jeopardise my job, and I believe it has,” she says.
“Every time I post anything about climate change, I lose at least a thousand followers. People are following me for a very specific reason and it’s not the environment.
“People say, ‘f*** you posting this. We don’t want to hear this. This is not what we’re interested in. Stop preaching. Climate change isn’t real.’
“I’ve had to be very careful and it is really difficult at times.
“And I think that’s why there is a lack of artists speaking out about it, because they’re just terrified for their job.” But now Ellie says she is coping much better with the trolls.
She tells the So Hot Right Now podcast: “I’ve had trolls for as long as I can remember, people saying not very nice things about me.
“But it genuinely doesn’t bother me. “And I don’t know whether that’s because I’m very comfortable in myself.
“When people say things to me on social media, I find it genuinely funny.
“I seemed to have developed quite a good relationship with it.
“Even some of my fans are saying now that ‘we don’t like the last few songs you’ve released’.”
But the star, who has sold 15 million albums worldwide, adds: “I’m like: ‘Well, that’s done now’.”