How Ellie’s baby has healed the heartbreak rift with her mum
( due) and it isn’t even for another 10 weeks!
SHE has previously spoken about having a strained relationship with her mother that she thought was ‘unfixable’.
But for pregnant singer Ellie Goulding, the prospect of becoming a parent herself seems to have helped heal their family rift.
Yesterday her mother, Tracey, 56, revealed that she and Ellie, 34, are back on speaking terms and that she is ‘very excited’ to meet her new grandchild.
Ellie, who married old Etonian art dealer Caspar Jopling, 29, in a lavish ceremony at York Minster in 2019, made the surprise announcement she was 30 weeks pregnant in an interview with Vogue magazine earlier this week.
The pop star, who grew up in Hereford, managed to keep the news – and her burgeoning bump – secret throughout lockdown, having last appeared on television in August. But in one of her last interviews Ellie revealed she had not seen her mother for more than 12 months since her nuptials, which were attended by stars including Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry and princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and Sarah, Duchess of York.
She claimed her mother ‘became quite threatening’ when she talked about her in the press, adding: ‘Discussing her was a disaster. I haven’t seen my mother since
‘I’m obviously happy and excited’
my wedding. I’ve done a lot of therapy about it because what I thought was fixable isn’t fixable.’
But speaking to the Mail yesterday, Tracey Goulding said the pair had been reconciled. ‘All I want to say is that I am obviously very, very happy and excited,’ Mrs Goulding said. ‘It’ll be my third grandchild.
‘Everything’s great, it’s fine. There was nothing really to resolve. I have seen her since the wedding but not much since the lockdowns. But she’s been very good, we’ve all been very good. I can’t wait to see my new grandchild.’
Mrs Goulding said she had spent the pandemic in a bubble with her youngest daughter and her grandson, but hasn’t been able to catch up with her other children – Ellie included – due to restrictions. An NHS worker, she also revealed how she’d had Covid last year.
The issues between Ellie – who last night appeared on the Graham Norton Show – and herself were ‘all very silly’, she added.
Ellie is the second of Tracey’s four children. A talented artist and one-time punk with connections to Siouxsie Sioux, Mrs Goulding worked for various record companies as a young woman, but by the time Ellie was born she was working in a supermarket to make ends meet. The family lived in a council house in Lyonshall, Hereford.
Ellie’s father, Arthur, a talented guitarist, left when she was five and she was raised by a stepfather she loathed.
‘We grew up in the smallest house,’ she said. ‘Moth-eaten, flearidden furniture with holes in it was handed down from my nana.’
As a youngster, Ellie took up the clarinet and guitar, joined the local operatic society and performed in school plays, but said she never felt special or encouraged. ‘I could only sing when Mum wasn’t there,’ she said. ‘I think she had a weird way of supporting and encouraging me, more like an old-fashioned way of “work hard” rather than “that’s brilliant”.’ Aged around 15, Ellie went to live with two family friends.
They were more of an influence on her musically than either of her parents, Ellie said, teaching her about folk music. Then at 18, she met and moved in with a sound engineer called Matt, 14 years her senior. Their romance lasted until she became famous. He encouraged her to apply to the University of Kent, which she did, studying English and Drama.
However, her big break came at an open mic talent show where she met her manager, Jamie Lillywhite, the son of producer Steve Lillywhite and the late singer Kirsty MacColl. She signed a record deal with Polydor and quit university in her final year.
The combination of her voice and electro-pop backing proved successful on both sides of the Atlantic with the album Lights in 2010 a big hit, as was the album Delirium in 2015.
Since becoming famous, Ellie has managed a reconciliation with her father. It wasn’t as easy to heal her relationship with her mother. ‘I think showbusiness has made her more confident and it has made her believe in herself more as a person,’ Mrs Goulding said.
‘She has met a lot of people who have taught her a lot of things. She has been in a few bad relationships and that has taught her a lot. She is slowly getting there.
‘Now that she’s been recognised for the talent that she has, that’s certainly a good thing. She has worked bloody hard to get where she is and it’s just great.’