It’s been six years since the #MeToo movement exploded into the mainstream consciousness, and Ellie Goulding believes that the reckoning has changed the music industry for the better.
In a new interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today show, the “Love Me Like You Do” singer recounted the evolution of her experiences in the music industry post-#MeToo.
“I definitely think the landscape has changed a bit, especially since the #MeToo movement,” Goulding said. “I think that was really, really important for people to keep speaking out about their individual stories, because I know a lot was happening and just wasn’t being talked about.”
Activist Tarana Burke first coined the phrase “Me Too” in the context of raising awareness against sexual violence and rape culture in 2006.
The phrase grew into a culture-shifting social movement by 2017 when several sexual abuse allegations were levied against disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein.
For Goulding,
“hearing so many other, similar stories from other female musicians and singers” helped her realize that those experiences – which she described as a “kind of currency” – were not to be normalized.
“I realized that I wasn’t alone in it at all. It wasn’t just me, being particularly friendly.”
“It was like a sort of unspoken thing where if you’re working with male producers, that was almost like an expectation, which sounds mad for me to say out loud, and it definitely wouldn’t happen now.
I mean, very rarely, because things have just really changed,” she said.
“Younger artists at Polydor, my record label, will now have chaperones when they go to the studio. And they also have a chance to speak to a counselor or speak to someone about their experience as an up-and-coming musician.”
