Ellie Goulding boasts her 15-month old baby son already has a very special talent
ELLIE GOULDING reckons her son is destined to follow in her stellar footsteps as he is showing signs of being a musical prodigy, aged just one.
The Love Me Like You Do singer, who collected the Ally prize at Wednesday’s Attitude Awards at London’s Roundhouse, said Arthur sings and even knows his scales.
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Asked whether he has shown any signs he is musically gifted, Ellie said: “Yes, which I’m very proud of. He can do scales, he’s only 15 months but he’s very singy. He is very musical and loves classical music. He’s got some musical genes, I’m very happy about that.”
And Arthur will have somewhere to hone that talent as he grows up, as his pop star mum is making a music hub at their home in Gloucestershire.
At the glitzy event, celebrating the LGBTQ+ community and its supporters, Ellie, who has three No1 singles and four hit albums, explained: “I’m building a music studio. I had a little shed and I’ve put all the stuff into it. It’s kind of already there.
“It’s so I can spend more time with my son and still work, otherwise I’m leaving him. I want to hang out with him all the time.
“Whenever anyone wants a break I can pop down and see him. I want the best of both worlds.”
Ellie premiered her next single Let It Die at the event, and it will feature on her as-yet-unannounced fifth album.
And busy Ellie is already working on the follow-up.
She said: “It’s kind of an escapist album. It’s a bunch of dance songs, going back to my electronic roots because I grew up on electronic music and rave music.”
We’re all in Ora of Sexy Rita
RITA ORA looks good enough to cut out and keep in this black, skin-flashing outfit.
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The singer wore a crop top and matching mini-skirt to the Byredo Eyes Closed Dinner in London.
She grinned as she arrived at the bash alongside models Amelia Hamlin and Mia Regan.
Rita has just returned from New Zealand with film director hubby Taika Waititi, where she performed at the Women’s Rugby World Cup. She has a busy year ahead she prepares to release a new album. She looks in fine form for it.
NICK’S DELAY
NICK GRIMSHAW and his fiance Meshach Henry won’t be walking down the aisle anytime soon because they are yet to throw an engagement party.
The former Radio 1 DJ revealed he was engaged in March but has admitted any hopes of marrying this year have slipped away.
He said: “We are going to get married but there are no plans at all.
“We were meant to have an engagement party in January and now we’re in October. We were like, ‘Let’s get engaged, have a party and probably get married at Christmas’. We’ve still not had the party. But we will.”
Asked if it will be a big occasion, he said: “I hope so, I want it to be like this, with a major red carpet.”
It could be boozy too, despite Nick saying he had stopped drinking earlier this year. Asked if he was still off the bottle, he joked: “Kind of. But I did have a negroni on the way here, so not really.”
Footloose Woody
BEING a party lover must run in the genes, because Zoe Ball and Fatboy Slim’s son Woody Cook was the night’s biggest caner.
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But it’s not just the booze which will have left him sore yesterday morning – his feet will have been aching as he was barefoot.
The Celebrity Gogglebox regular was asked on the red carpet where his shoes were. He replied: “We put so much pressure into what we wear. You don’t have to wear anything to be yourself.
“I like being barefoot, sometimes I am when I’m DJing, so I thought, ‘I wonder what the carpet feels like?’ Now I know.”
He later admitted he had stepped on glass getting out of a taxi at the Roundhouse, but that didn’t put him off from still wandering barefoot at the after-party at 1:30am.
At 3am, he accepted defeat at nightclub G-A-Y Late where he was made to put some on.
Woody has spent the summer DJing at festivals such as Glastonbury and shared he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps by releasing his own music.
Woody said: “I’ve always liked making music. It’s in the pipeline. Watch this space.”
MELANIE C threw such a strop during her performance at the ceremony that even she compared herself to the ultimate diva, Mariah Carey.
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The Spice Girl stopped as she sang 2000 solo single I Turn To You due to technical difficulties. She shouted: “Stop the track. . . I can’t be having some s*** ass performance. That wasn’t me going mad, there were two f***ing tracks playing.” Demanding a drink, she said: “Can I get some water? I have turned into Mariah Carey.” She regained her composure to restart and added: “Thank you for your patience and kindness.”
PERRIE EDWARDS got herself in a bit of a tangle as she tried to hold her outfit together on the way home.
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She clung to her skimpy top as she hopped into a taxi.
Judging by the smile on her face, she had a Perrie good night.
EMILY ATACK is among those in the running to host the rebooted series of Big Brother on ITV2, but AJ Odudu also wants to get in on the action.
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Asked if she wanted to front it, she told me: “I would like to do it. There’s always names in the mix, that’s the nature of being a TV presenter. Whoever gets it, I’m sure they’ll do a fabulous job – myself included.
“I love Big Brother, it’s such a heritage show and it’s brought so much joy in the past. Also it’s going to be really exciting because it’s going to be back bigger and better than ever.”
Drag it up
SCARLETT MOFFATT was all glammed up for the event but explained she has secret ambitions of going even more over the top – by becoming a drag artist.
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She said: “I already have a drag name picked out, Donna Kebab.
“She would be a little bit classy but mostly trashy.”
Now she wants the BBC to launch a celebrity spin-off of Rupaul’s Drag Race so she could take part.
Scarlett, inset, added: “America’s got one. I’d put my name right at the top of that list.
“I don’t know what I would have to do to get on there, but I’d try.”
SHAWN’S CAM SNUB
IT doesn’t sound like Shawn Mendes will hold back when it comes to singing about Camila Cabello on his next album.
The Canadian, left, has been single since splitting with her last year, when they insisted they would remain close friends. But now he has uploaded to Instagram a snippet of a new track in which he says he no longer wants to be mates.
Shawn sings: “Baby I swear I don’t want to be friends any more. I used to care but I don’t think I care any more. Don’t call me, I’m no longer yours.”
Awkward.
Stormzy out of hiding
STORMZY has announced his third album and admitted that he has been sitting on it for almost two years.
The grime star today premiered his new single, Hide & Seek, which will feature on the album This Is What I Mean.
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He returned from a three-year social media hiatus to announce the project and told how the album was made at the beginning of 2021 on an island in Essex.
He said of working on Osea Island: “When you hear about music camps they always sound intense and sombre.
“But this felt beautifully free.
He added: “Some days we played football or walked around taking pictures. And the by-product to that was very beautiful music.
“Because when you marry that ethos with world-class musicians and the best producers, writers and artists in the world, and we’re in one space, that’s a recipe for something that no one can really imagine.”
The rapper said: “You can’t even calculate what that’s going to come up with. And it came up with a big chunk of this album.”
The album will be out on November 25, putting him in a chart battle with veteran Cliff Richard, who is returning with his first festive record in almost two decades.
Somehow, I think Stormzy will be all right there.
CALVIN CAN’T BE-LEAF VICK’S FLOWERS
GREEN-fingered Calvin Harris was left baffled after visiting his fiancee Vick Hope’s flat and looking at her vases of flowers used to decorate it – because they were cabbages.
The radio DJ said she buys them every autumn but only this week did Calvin, who lives on a farm in Ibiza, tell her she had blundered.
Vick admitted on her Radio 1 show: “This time every year there are these flowers that come in the shop that I love. I have noticed they do tend to go off quite quickly, so they often get binned.
“It turns out these flowers that I love are cabbages.
“My partner said the other day, ‘Why have you got cabbages in vases?’
“I really stood my ground.
“I was like, ‘No, they’re a special type of flower’.
“He said, ‘I know gardens, those are cabbages’.
“My bin is full of bouquets of rotting cabbages.”
