English songstress Ellie Goulding had kind of a rough weekend, after viewers who witnessed her appearance as part of the AFL Grand Final pre-game entertainment slammed her performance for its technical troubles and alleged lip-syncing.

Goulding was meant to perform her single ‘Love Me Like You Do’, but appeared to miss the cue for her backing track. Accusations of lip-syncing ensued when the track, complete with vocals, began to play without the singer.

The singer has since hit back at her critics, claiming she gives 100 percent on stage “even when people don’t give much back” before claiming she had been under the weather all week and throwing the AFL’s sound guy under the bus.

“Incidentally the sound guy who pressed playback twice and triggered both band tracks simultaneously is nowhere to be seen,” Goulding wrote in a since-deleted tweet, after claiming that she considers lip-sync accusations to be “a rad compliment”.

“Considering I had no voice yesterday and a sleepless night because of the meds I would say it’s been a good day… thanks for the love,” she wrote. “I give 100 per cent in my performances even when people don’t give much back.”

“My fans know that. That’s because I love what I do so much… Truth be told I’ve been unwell the past week and I could do with a long spell chill but I was determined to give everything for Oz today.”

When a peeved Twitter citizen suggested that blaming the difficulties during her performance on her “stagehands” may not be sporting, Goulding implied that it was the AFL’s technical team who are to blame, writing, “certainly wasn’t MY stagehands”.

Goulding’s comment echoes a series of claims made by singer Meat Loaf last month. The US rocker, who performed at a previous AFL Grand Final, slammed the AFL as “the cheapest people” he’d ever seen and blamed his shambolic performance on vocal troubles.

Mere hours after Goulding’s performance, Australian music industry mogul Michael Gudinski, who serves as producer of the AFL Grand Final’s entertainment, issued a personal statement rubbishing claims that Goulding lip-synced.

“Ellie performed live vocals to a backing track. This is a very common practice for performances in situations such as the Grand Final,” he said, blaming the “brief hiccup” at the start of her set on a technical fault.

“Unfortunately a technical issue at the start of Ellie’s performance caused a brief hiccup but Ellie went on to prove just how much of a superstar she is, belting out two of her massive hits. Claims that Ellie lip-synced her performance are absolutely untrue.”

Goulding’s performance was slammed online as well as in the media. The Age‘s Leaping Larry wrote that Goulding’s set upheld the AFL Grand Final’s tradition of “$2 shop entertainment” and giving “magnificent inspiration for viewers to take a toilet break”.

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