Daily Times

Ellie Goulding is using TikTok to debunk a longstanding rumor about her love life. On Dec. 31, the British pop star shared a video of herself dancing to the Harry Styles song “As It Was,” prompting one user to comment, “can’t believe u cheated on ed with niall but slay fr,” referring to Ed Sheeran and Niall Horan, both of whom she sparked romance rumors with in 2013.

Goulding responded, “False!!!! But also slay.”

Goulding, 36, and Horan, 29, who has never spoken about the fellow singer, had sparked romance rumors in August 2013, with the UK tabloid The Mirror reporting that the two were spotted showing PDA at the V Festival in England.

A week later, the “Burn” singer and Sheeran, 31-a frequent collaborator of Horan’s band One Direction at the time-were seen on camera holding hands while sitting in the audience at the MTV VMAs. She tweeted at the time, “I love that holding hands with my friends means we’re an item. In that case I am in many relationships. Lover not a hater. #whatthef–k.” However, the “Thinking Out Loud” singer indicated there was more to it, telling a Seattle radio station the following month, “I mean, normal people don’t hold hands if they’re just friends.” He added, “It was going on. And now it’s not.”

And in 2014, when Sheeran released the song “Don’t,” in which he sings about being cheated on by a fellow singer, many fans speculated the track referred to himself, Goulding and Horan.

In 2015, he told Entertainment Weekly that while a British newspaper had printed that “Don’t” was about Goulding and Horan, he “never actually confirmed it.”

“We got in touch, and they took the story down,” he continued. “But obviously the damage had already been done by that point because every other newspaper picked up on it.” Goulding-who wed Caspar Jopling in August 2019-has in the past reflected on the rumored relationships with Niall and Sheeran, who confirmed in July 2019 that he was married to Cherry Seaborn. “I did go on a few dates with Niall but I was never in a relationship with Ed,” Goulding told ELLE UK in 2015. “I have absolutely no idea where that came from and why it was turned into such a big thing.”