Ella Henderson reflects on ‘silver lining’ of breakups after new album release

Singer Ella Henderson said she discovered the “silver lining” of going through difficult breakups while writing her latest album.

Lincolnshire-born Henderson, 26, found fame on the TV singing competition X Factor in 2012.

After finishing sixth on the show she released her debut studio album, Chapter One.

Henderson’s second album, Everything I Didn’t Say, was released on March 11, nearly eight years after her first.

Henderson said the songs Thank You For The Hell and Toxic were inspired by the “rottenness” of a past breakup, and discovering how to transform it into something beneficial.

Speaking on The Rebecca Judd Show on Apple Music, Henderson said: “I used to think of all the bad, all the rottenness and just all the toxic parts to it.

“And this song is when you have gone through the hurt, you’ve gone through the pain, you’ve gone through the anger and all these emotions.

“And you get to this other side where you finally see the silver lining and you actually reflect and you’re like, ‘Thank you actually, for all of that stuff you put me through because without it, I wouldn’t be stood exactly where I am today’.

“I just think word for word, lyric for lyric, this song is the literal story of what happened to me in this process.”

Henderson also said she wrote “nearly over 400 songs” while creating the album.

She added: “The funny thing is though, I always have my standouts. There was always a selection and a handful of songs that I knew were going to always be either single worthy or on this album.

“And then I think when it came down to actually deciding the track order and the track listing, I was like, ‘I want every single song on here to tell a different story and to tell a different part of my life’, so there’s no point in doubling up on the same thing.”

Before the release of Everything I Didn’t Say, Henderson made several collaborative singles between 2015 and 2021, with artists including Sigala and Jax Jones.

After finishing her second album, Henderson likened the release of the record to giving birth.

She said: “I feel like I’ve just given birth to something that obviously hasn’t come out of me, but has had so much of my sweat, blood and tears.

“Do you know what? This has just been such a long time coming for me. So I’m just so excited to finally have the album out and to share it with the fans and to finally just share my stories and all these songs that I’ve had for some time and written.”

Speaking about the gap between her two records, Henderson explained she never planned to leave it so long.

“I never anticipated to leave it this long. I didn’t even make a conscious choice,” she said.

“It was just, this is what happened and life happened and so much has happened in between then and I think with my first album and those younger years… The first stages of my career, I had so much success at a young age.

“So I think actually having a bit of time to live and experience real life, because otherwise I’d have had nothing to write about.”