Ellie Goulding: I feel strong

She's suffered panic attacks so bad she thought she was dying, she's felt insecure and had her heart broken, but right now Ellie Goulding is at her strongest. Speaking exclusively to Cosmopolitan, she states:

"My confidence has grown in the past year, as a woman… I feel strong in more ways than one at the moment… I feel very independent and feminist right now – I think maybe it's being single. I never thought about the idea of being an inspiration. I'm not perfect; I'm not a supermodel – I drink and smoke (which I'm not proud of) and do normal things."

Reflecting on the darkest times of her life, she reveals how insecure she used to be and advises never changing for anyone:

"I went through a time of being quite insecure. I'd convinced myself I was fat; I didn't like my figure and I had a big nose. Now I've finally got to a place where I don't focus on those things. I feel like I'm not changing for anyone; I'm doing it all for myself. Because there's no one else to do it for."

"You should never change for anyone. And I say that because I've done it before; I've changed for a man… I was so, so in love with him that I'd have done anything. I look back now and think, 'What an idiot!' You only realise when you're out of it how someone can have a hold over you. He treated me horrendously and I just didn't help myself."

Opening up above love, she still carries a soft spot for Radio 1 DJ, Greg James:

"You might be with someone you think you know everything about, then it takes just one thing to throw it all into the wind. I wrote Anything Can Happen because I'd been in a relationship with Greg [James, Radio 1 DJ] for two years, who I absolutely adored and still do. Then that ended very unexpectedly and it threw me off. I didn't expect another relationship for a long time after that. Then all of a sudden I met this other person [dubstep producer Skrillex], and it was crazy – it came from nowhere. I think it's really important to be with someone who inspires you and adds something to you. And humour! It's quite hard to really make me laugh. Greg is ridiculously funny – we were always laughing all the time. I've never met anyone with quite the same sense of humour as him… But it's nice going home to bed on my own before midnight and watching Geordie Shore!"

Talking about her dad [who left when Ellie was five], she admits her recent Children in Need song 'I Know You Care' is her closure:

"My song I Know You Care is about my dad and kind of my closure. I had a lot of anger and bitterness because he wasn't around. So much has happened to me in the past four years; he hasn't been part of that, and he wasn't before. Part of me wants him to be a nice dude, and be apologetic. But I'm really worried he's not going to be like that, so I'd rather have the question mark than the truth."

Commenting on another life-changing moment that made her - the day she thought she was going to die – she's now moved past the panic attacks that used to haunt her:

"One day after a shoot I was on a train going to a funeral and my heart was pounding; I thought I was having a heart attack. When I got to Cardiff, the next train was cancelled, so I had to get in a cab with strangers to Hereford. I was so scared I reached over to this woman and said, 'I think I'm dying.' I called a friend to take me to hospital, where they told me it was just a panic attack. From that day, I kept having them. It was the weirdest time of my life. Sick, horrible things would go through my mind but I didn't want to draw attention to myself… It got to the point when I couldn't even get into the car and go to the studio. Then I went to see an amazing woman to have CBT, and she flushed everything out. It took a lot of going back to my childhood. With the help of things like Diazepam in small doses to relax me at certain times, the attacks slowly stopped and now I'm through it."

Discussing her friends, she cites Taylor Swift as an 'inspiration':

"There are several girls I'm really close to and we are mental. Rita [Ora] I adore. She's got a really good outlook on life – she's really positive, hard-working and funny. Cara [Delevingne] and I have so much fun; we relate to each other. Me and Taylor [Swift] are similar in that we write about relationships, and we joke about that. We text and sometimes I only have to say one thing, and even if it's cryptic she gets it. She's an inspiration to me because she reinstated how honest you can be about a boy in your music. I thought maybe I should stop being so explicit at one point, then I slapped myself out of that: I'm always going to write about people."

Alongside her phenomenal voice, as long as Ellie's got her health and fitness she'll always be happy:

"I've always worked out and love running; that's the most important thing in my life. I think it's a survival-instinct thing: if I've got nothing else, I've always got my fitness and health… At university I went through a phase of being terrified of eating carbs; instead I'd just eat sweets and chocolate. I realise now that was ridiculous. I lacked energy and fell asleep in my lectures. Now I don't deprive myself – everything in moderation!"

The full interview appears in the January 2014 issue of Cosmopolitan, on sale 6th December.
For behind-the-scenes footage, please go to www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/elliegoulding