Ellie Goulding Thinks We All Need to Be More Selfish

Singer Ellie Goulding poses for a portrait, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Singer Ellie Goulding poses for a portrait, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
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Ellie Goulding Thinks We All Need to Be More Selfish

Singer Ellie Goulding poses for a portrait, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Singer Ellie Goulding poses for a portrait, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Throughout her career, Ellie Goulding has been candid about the drawbacks of fame. Although she remembers being a self-conscious teenager, Goulding said her struggles with panic attacks, anxiety and insecurity about how she looks were exacerbated in the early stages of her stardom.

“I was kind of thrust into this world,” she recalled. “I didn’t really get a chance to sort of do that thing that everyone gets to do where they kind of come out of that teenage phase, like start to find yourself.”

But as Goulding gears up to release her fifth studio album, “Higher Than Heaven,” on Friday, the British pop star declared she is done caring about what other people think, The Associated Press said.

“I can’t allow those comments and those opinions to affect me. I can’t. Life is too short,” Goulding said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press. “I think we all need to be way more selfish and stop doing things for other people."

But even as she professes to put herself first more, Goulding does want to use her clout to speak up for those “who don’t have a voice,” including the people most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and the planet itself.

As she finalizes the details of her upcoming tour, the outspoken climate activist and UN Environment goodwill ambassador is putting her money where her mouth is by only agreeing to play venues that can meet her standards of environmentally sustainable practices.

“We’re trying to figure out a tour that’s very green and has the smallest possible carbon footprint,” she said. “I really care about that stuff and it just takes a little bit more time and energy and effort to figure it all out.”

Goulding is cognizant of the amount of pollution and waste that results from a typical tour, from the travel involved to the merchandise sold and large quantities of plastic used.

“There’s like so much plastic backstage,” she said.

But for her, the extra work is worth it to return to the stage. Like many artists at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Goulding was unable to take her last album on tour when it was released in July 2020.

“As a performer, I didn’t realize how much it was really holding me together. Even just the act of singing is really a powerful thing,” she said. “I was doing it all the time and then I stopped. And suddenly my anxiety came back and I felt something was really missing.”

While she is happy to return to the familiarity of performing and making electronic music, a genre she said she grew up on, Goulding mused that she would consider new collaborators and possibly even new styles of music in the future.

“I think for the next album I might experiment a bit,” she said.

“My voice carries everything I do and so, I feel like I could put out a classical album tomorrow and people would be like, ‘Yeah, that’s Ellie, isn’t it?’ So, I feel like I can get away with that,” she laughed.

Goulding’s outlook on pleasing others isn’t the only thing that has undergone profound shifts since the singer rose to fame more than a decade ago. In that time, the way people listen to and discover music has fundamentally changed, as well as the way artists are often expected to engage with fans.

“I do feel a little bit lucky that I came through as an artist in a time when there was no social media,” the 36-year-old said as she reflected on the current ubiquity of platforms like TikTok and Instagram and the influence they have on the music industry.

Although she is looking forward to fans hearing the “uplifting, upbeat” sound of “Higher Than Heaven,” Goulding said her expectations surrounding album releases have been tempered in recent years.

“Every other album gets like a big build up and a big release. And it feels like something has shifted,” she said. “People are just really on a kind of quest for more and more information, more and more songs and music, more behind the scenes with songs, more collaborations.”

In the midst of the industry’s insatiable appetite for more, Goulding finds solace in “Sex and the City” reruns and regular exercise, something she still prioritizes after becoming a mom.

“It’s kind of always been a constant thing in my life. Everything else is chaotic and the one thing I can rely on is running and going to the gym,” she said, adding that working out helps her stay mentally “in the best possible place” for her son, Arthur.



'KPop Demon Hunters' Craze Hits Theaters After Topping Netflix, Music Charts

This picture taken on August 21, 2025 shows Korean Canadian director Maggie Kang, who created and co-directed Netflix's currently most popular animated film "KPop Demon Hunters," visiting the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. (Yonhap/AFP)
This picture taken on August 21, 2025 shows Korean Canadian director Maggie Kang, who created and co-directed Netflix's currently most popular animated film "KPop Demon Hunters," visiting the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. (Yonhap/AFP)
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'KPop Demon Hunters' Craze Hits Theaters After Topping Netflix, Music Charts

This picture taken on August 21, 2025 shows Korean Canadian director Maggie Kang, who created and co-directed Netflix's currently most popular animated film "KPop Demon Hunters," visiting the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. (Yonhap/AFP)
This picture taken on August 21, 2025 shows Korean Canadian director Maggie Kang, who created and co-directed Netflix's currently most popular animated film "KPop Demon Hunters," visiting the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. (Yonhap/AFP)

Netflix's gargantuan hit film "KPop Demon Hunters" has captured the global zeitgeist this summer, smashing streaming and music chart records. Now it is coming for movie theaters.

An animated musical about a trio of Korean pop starlets who fight demons with infectious songs and synchronized dance moves, "Demon Hunters" has been watched 210 million times and currently has five of the global top 10 songs on Spotify.

In an unlikely journey, the streaming mega-hit is tipped by analysts to hit number one at the box office this weekend, with thousands of cosplaying fans headed to sold-out "singalong screenings" in theaters across five countries.

"Insane, crazy, surreal," singer EJAE, who co-wrote the film's biggest track "Golden" and performs heroine Rumi's songs, told an advance screening at Netflix's Hollywood headquarters this week.

"I'm just really grateful I'm able to be part of this crazy cultural phenomenon."

For the uninitiated, the film's premise is bizarre yet simple. Demons who feed on human souls have been trapped in another realm by the powerful voices of girl group HUNTR/X.

To fight back, the demons secretly send their own devilishly handsome boy band to steal HUNTR/X's fans and feast on their essences.

Rivalries ensue, loyalties fray, and an unlikely romance evolves over 90 minutes of power ballads and pop earworms, all against anime-style backdrops of Seoul's modern skyline and traditional bathhouses and thatched hanok homes.

Released in June, "KPop Demon Hunters" is already Netflix's most-watched animated offering, and sits second on the all-time chart for any original film. It is likely to take the top spot within the week.

"This movie is a triple threat. It's got fantastic writing. It has got stunning animation. And the songs are bangers," said Wendy Lee Szany, a Los Angeles-based movie critic and KPop devotee.

Indeed, songs by the movie's fictional HUNTR/X and boy-band rivals Saja Boys occupy three of the Billboard top 10 -- a feat no movie soundtrack has achieved since the 1990s.

While combining the global KPop craze with sexy supernatural monsters might sound like an obvious recipe for Netflix's much-vaunted algorithm, nobody expected "Demon Hunters" to take off on this scale.

It was made by Hollywood studio Sony Pictures, intended for the big screen, but sold to Netflix during the pandemic when many theaters were shuttered.

That may have worked to the film's advantage, said John Nguyen, founder of pop culture website Nerd Reactor.

"If Sony had released it in theaters, I don't think it would have been as big," he said.

"It's word-of-mouth. People shared it, talked about it, posted videos on social media of fans and families singing along in their living rooms."

Endless homespun TikTok dance videos have added to the momentum.

"People who haven't seen the movie yet are seeing these memes, they can't escape it, so they just end up like, 'Okay, I'm gonna sit down this weekend (and watch) on Netflix," said Szany.

"And then they fall in love with it."

Seeking to capitalize, Netflix -- usually averse to movie theaters -- is hosting "singalongs" at 1,700 North American cinemas this weekend.

Fans are invited to dress up, whip their phones out and film themselves singing at their top of their voices.

The approach has cinema traditionalists despairing, but earned Taylor Swift's concert movie $260 million at the box office in 2023.

Early estimates suggest "KPop Demon Hunters" could make $15 million in domestic theaters and top this weekend's box office.

Analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research said that figure seemed "reasonable... for now," but could get "shattered" if a rush of demand causes theater owners to add extra screenings.

That would be a welcome shot in the arm for movie theaters, after the bleak years of Covid-19, Hollywood strikes, and younger audiences migrating to -- ironically -- streaming.

"There were literally so many kids singing their hearts out," said Szany, who attended Netflix's advance singalong, and has watched the film at least eight times.

"I was like, wow, they know all the lyrics better than I do."


Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi Welcome First Child Via Adoption

FILE - Millie Bobby Brown, left, and Jake Bongiovi arrive at the premiere of "The Electric State" on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Millie Bobby Brown, left, and Jake Bongiovi arrive at the premiere of "The Electric State" on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
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Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi Welcome First Child Via Adoption

FILE - Millie Bobby Brown, left, and Jake Bongiovi arrive at the premiere of "The Electric State" on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Millie Bobby Brown, left, and Jake Bongiovi arrive at the premiere of "The Electric State" on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi adopted a daughter, the first child for the married couple, this summer, they announced Thursday.

“We are beyond excited to embark on this beautiful next chapter of parenthood in both peace and privacy,” the couple wrote in a social media statement. No further details were released.

Brown, 21, and Bongiovi, 23, were married in a private ceremony in May 2024. Representatives for Brown and Bongiovi did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment.

Brown gained recognition for her starring role as Eleven in the Duffer brothers' sci-fi series “Stranger Things.” The fifth and final season will air this November and December, a culmination of nine years of the show's production. The British actor has pursued other acting and business ventures in that time, including the Netflix original “Enola Holmes” films and a “Godzilla” film. She even released a romance book in 2023.

Bongiovi is the son of Jon Bon Jovi, founder and frontman of the rock band Bon Jovi. Bongiovi debuted his own acting career as the star in “Rockbottom,” which released last year.

Brown stressed the importance of family during the 2024 premiere of her Netflix film “Damsel,” where Bongiovi and his parents were in attendance.

“I'm just so lucky that they're here tonight and it just means so much to me,” Brown told The Associated Press then. “Family is everything and just to have my second family here means everything.”

The couple lives in Georgia. She recently told the AP she enjoys living on a farm, largely disconnected from social media, while promoting her 2025 Netflix film “The Electric State.”


Helen Mirren Says It’s Great to See Older People’s Life Experiences in ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ 

 (L-R) Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan attend Netflix's "The Thursday Murder Club" New York Screening at The Plaza Hotel on August 14, 2025 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)
(L-R) Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan attend Netflix's "The Thursday Murder Club" New York Screening at The Plaza Hotel on August 14, 2025 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Helen Mirren Says It’s Great to See Older People’s Life Experiences in ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ 

 (L-R) Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan attend Netflix's "The Thursday Murder Club" New York Screening at The Plaza Hotel on August 14, 2025 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)
(L-R) Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan attend Netflix's "The Thursday Murder Club" New York Screening at The Plaza Hotel on August 14, 2025 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)

Actor Helen Mirren, one of the stars of "The Thursday Murder Club," a movie about a group of retirees who enjoy cracking unresolved murder cases, said it's great to see older people’s life experiences celebrated on screen.

Eighty-year-old Mirren plays former spy Elizabeth Best in the new Netflix mystery, who along with her other impressive retired friends - played by Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie - find themselves with a real murder to solve.

"We underestimate older people. I did it when I was 25," Mirren said at the film's premiere in London on Thursday.

"It's absolutely right that young people feel as if the world is theirs and nobody's ever done what they're doing before, you know, but the reality is, of course, every generation has done everything that they're doing."

Directed by Chris Columbus, the film is based on Richard Osman's 2020 best-selling novel by the same name.

"I don't plot at all," Osman said of his writing process. "I literally have a rough idea of what might happen. I have a little twist somewhere, but I literally write a chapter at a time and see what happens," he said.

Describing the movie, one of the screenplay writers, Katy Brand, said it mixes "serious, heartfelt warmth" and moments of silliness, humor and satire.

"This whole sort of genre that we have in this country of the sort of Sunday night crime drama ... where amateur sleuthing goes on but it's also got mischief to it."

As for the future, with three more novels in the series already out and a fifth instalment from Osman planned for autumn, he hopes there will be more films.

"Certainly if it does well," he said. "I think the cast had such an amazing time last summer filming this. So I think they'd like to spend next summer filming another one as well. Fingers crossed." Osman said.

Netflix will begin streaming "The Thursday Murder Club" on August 28.