Last year, Lily Allen revealed she and husband, David Harbour, had called time on their relationship before spilling all the excruciating details.
She released an album, which she has now said was full of ‘rage’, skewering her ex-husband for an alleged affair with ‘Madeline’.
West End Girl became a cultural phenomenon and is once again vying to be number one in the charts against rising stars The Molotovs’ debut.
However, the reality of Lily’s life after the breakup was a far cry from the polka dot puffer wearing icon fans have come to recognise.
She revealed to Elle UK how she struggled to get out of bed, weeping in the bedroom while her children were on playdates.
Speaking of the support from her fellow mums, she said: ‘They were there when I was in a really tough spot – they could see how drawn I was and how withdrawn I became and how skinny I got and how sad I was.
‘They’d come and pick up their kids from play dates and I wouldn’t come downstairs. I’d be in my bedroom crying. And so I think this album came out and they’re all happy for me.’
The 40-year-old singer split from the Stranger Things star, 50, in late 2024 after four years of marriage.
David and Lily originally met on the dating app Raya before tying the knot in Las Vegas in 2020 at a small ceremony.
She and her daughters — Ethel, 14, and 12-year-old Marnie from her first marriage to Sam Cooper — relocated to the US to be with him, a move she sings about on the album.
Lily explained to Elle how she wanted things to ‘feel relatively normal’ while living out there, but couldn’t find a balance between work and her home life.
Before West End Girl, which is now three-times Brit Award-nominated, the Not Fair icon had not released music for seven years, although she had been honing her skills on the stage.
Her casting in Ghost Story 2:22 is where her album begins, suggesting the move back to London shattered their happy white picket fence bubble.
Metro described the album as an ‘unflinching postmortem’ of the demise of that relationship, and Lily has confessed she was ‘terrified’ of the response.
‘I was processing things that were happening at quite a traumatic period of time,’ she shared. ‘I don’t think that it’s a particularly self-aware record. It’s a really angry record. And it’s a lot more about rage directed towards other people. It’s not really about self-reflection.’
The album was so successful that Lily is even working on turning it into an actual West End play.
She has since moved on in her love life and is now said to be dating Jonah Freud, 28, the great-great-grandson of neurologist Sigmund Freud.
Lily and Jonah were first linked publicly after attending an Oasis party at the Chiltern Firehouse in London in September last year.
After confirming things with a romantic dinner, Jonah attended her Christmas party, and they have since been holidaying in Rome, staying in a £800 per night hotel.
Lily’s full interview is in the March issue of Elle, which is on sale now.
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