Ellie Goulding has revealed she felt like a “robot” when recording her last album after becoming a first-time mother, and that the birth of her second child has left her feeling far more equipped to face a music comeback — as she prepares to release what she describes as her most honest record yet, covering the breakdown of her marriage.
The singer made the admission during an appearance on Later… With Jools Holland on Sunday, where she performed her new song Black Prada Dress ahead of the September release of her forthcoming album I Know Too Much. She welcomed daughter Iris with boyfriend Beau Minniear in March and has now launched her return to music.
Reflecting on the period following the birth of her son Arthur, Goulding said the dissociation she felt during the postnatal phase directly fed into her 2023 album Higher Than Heaven — a record she says she barely remembers making. “The first time I went back in the studio, I was kind of a robot,” she told the programme. “I made this 2023 album called Higher Than Heaven and I don’t remember it. Any woman that’s had a baby can relate to that postnatal phase of, ‘What the hell just happened to me?'”
She recalled a recent moment that captured the feeling with dark humour. “Someone heard a song from it the other day and was like, ‘I thought this was AI, that’s the new thing’. And I was like, kind of, because I was like a robot and didn’t know what I was doing for a time.” This time around, she says, things are different. “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.”
The new album, she confirmed, will be her most personal and unflinching work. Having previously described it as a “divorce album,” she elaborated on what the record covers. “It’s probably the most honest song I’ve written. 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.”
Goulding and her ex-husband Caspar Jopling finalised their divorce in January last year after separating in 2024. The pair remain on good terms and co-parent Arthur together. She said she had been careful about which songs from the divorce period to include. “When I married my ex-husband, I thought it was for life. There are some songs that are necessary for me to acknowledge that time in my life and to be respectful of it. Then there were some songs that were extremely reactionary and sad that I felt were good to do in the moment but don’t serve me long-term.”
When she shared the album with close friends for their reaction, their responses surprised her. “One person said, ‘Wow, this is the divorce album’. And then most of the others were like, ‘This just sounds like you’re a new woman. It sounds like growing and rediscovery. It doesn’t feel like divorce’.”
Caspar has since moved on with actress Olivia Wilde, 41, with the two spotted together on a romantic Valentine’s Day weekend in Mexico City in February.
