Technical issues before the Hawthorn Hawks and West Coast Eagles clash in Melbourne appeared to suggest the gig was anything but live - but Goulding has been quick to respond to the criticism.

Her Australian promoter, Michael Gudinski, has revealed a sound technician pressed play on the backing tracks for both of her hits, Love Me Like You Do and Burn, instead of one at a time.

And now she states, "I would rather something go wrong than go up there and people think I am this perfect pop star who everything goes right for, and I'm not human, I'm a robot."

Goulding admits she had no choice but to sing live to the backing track - but she was singing live.

Appearing on Nova FM's Smallzy's Surgery on Monday (05Oct15), she added, "When you are asked to perform at a big event... you sing live, your backing singers sing live; they will not allow your band to play live if there's a lot of changeovers and a lot of different artists playing, so a lot of times I've had to sing live and my band mime (sic). That is what we're given... They say, 'Either you do this or you're not playing'."

Goulding admits she cannot understand why everyone is making such a fuss of her performance when it surely was clear that she was not lip-syncing.

"I thought I sang good (sic)," she said. "I was really happy with my performance."

In another interview following the AFL drama, the singer stated, "I'm not hurt by any accusations of lip-syncing. I don't bloody lip-sync. If I lip-synced I would be terrible at it."