Rita Ora has thanked Ed Sheeran for helping her tell her "stories".

The 26-year-old singer hasn't released an album for five years because of a lengthy dispute with her old record label, Roc Nation, and she has praised the 'Castle on the Hill' hitmaker for supporting her and co-writing and lending backing vocals to her comeback single, 'Your Song'.

She said: "Ed is one of my really good friends, I've known him for about five years now and that song actually happened towards the end [of recording].

"I think people were excited when they heard I was working on stuff again and I just needed to find a team of people who I could be myself with and open up to, people I could tell my stories...

"I am really grateful for the support. It's such a different time for me now."

The 'How We Do' singer had a high-profile relationship with Calvin Harris from April 2014 to June 2015 that ended in a break up so bitter, he blocked her from performing tracks he'd written.

However, despite the fascination surrounding their relationship, Rita - who has also dated Richard Hilfiger and Rob Kardashian - insisted gossip about her personal life was off limits when it came to writing her new material.

She told Australia's Sunday Telegraph newspaper: "I didn't want to talk about the tabloids or the gossip stuff when it came to writing songs. There's maybe one song that addresses the past ... but I am more for being positive and moving forward.

"At the beginning, I was more sensitive to [trolling] but as you get used to it, it's not so much you become numb to it as you know yourself more so it means less.

"The people around you know what's true. And there is so much of that stuff out there, people get bored with it."