I was embarrassed to be on stage as a child, says pop star Goulding

SINGER ELLIE Goulding has admitted that she was “painfully shy” as a child and had to overcome her fear of being “embarrassed” about performing on stage.

The 33-year-old told the BBC’s Later... With Jools Holland show that while she always wanted to take centre stage in school plays, she had to deal with the “paradox” of also being reserved.

She said: “I was in lots of school plays, and I always wanted to be the main part in the school plays, but I was a very shy person, and it was this strange kind of paradox because I was always wanting to perform and sing, but I was painfully shy.

“I remember just being so shy and always being embarrassed, all the time, about everything.”

She added that the first time she performed at an open mic night she was a “nervous wreck” on stage.

Goulding, inset, who got married in York Minster last year in a ceremony attended by a host of Alist celebrities, also said that she had been trying to teach herself how to play the piano during the lockdown, but was doing “quite badly”. She added: “I’ve been getting people, pianists, to send me videos so I can watch their fingers. It’s just a different thing to me, I’ve played guitar all my life so it’s very different, so that’s taking up some time.” Goulding said that she had also been doing a “bit of writing” and was “picking up the guitar and seeing what happened”. She added that she is “trying not to put a crazy amount of pressure” on herself because her new album, Brightest Blue , is finished. Goulding wed art dealer Casper Jopling, whose family live in Yorkshire, in the Minster in August last year in a ceremony attended by pop stars, artists and royalty.