The Tragic Story Of Lily Allen
Note: This article discusses drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders, pregnancy loss, mental health issues, and sexual assault.
There are a variety of love songs from the 2000s that will never go out of style, but even more iconic were the revenge songs of the noughties. London-born Lily Allen shot to internet fame in 2005 after releasing her music on MySpace. debuted her 2006 hit "Smile" and quickly shot to fame as the song reached number one on the United Kingdom singles chart. Over the years, she's released four studio albums, been nominated for a Grammy, and had five songs hit Billboard's Hot 100 list.
Sadly, fame often comes hand in hand with tragic events, and the "Not Fair" singer has been dealt more than her fair share. The unfortunate circumstances in Allen's life began when she was just a child, as she navigated a tumultuous upbringing that resulted in her "raging co-dependency," as she told The Guardian in September 2018. She also struggled with fame and substance abuse and faced misfortune in her personal life time and again. Here are the tragic details about Lily Allen and how she overcame countless obstacles.
Her father left when she was young
Lily Allen was born on May 2, 1985, to film producer Alison Owen and actor Keith Allen, known for 2001's "The Others" and "Kingsman: The Golden Circle." Unfortunately, stability wasn't a concept the singer grew up with as her famous dad walked out on the family when she was just 4 years old. Allen and her siblings did have visitation with him, but days with her father were reportedly spent at Groucho Club, a private members' club in London, where he drank in excess in another room.
In speaking with The Guardian in September 2018, "The Fear" lyricist expressed her feelings about her dad, saying, "I've learned over the years that everything is about him, so fine, that's the deal. I've stopped trying to fight or bustle about trying to find a spare slot in his universe."
Little had changed by July 2021, when Allen updated The Telegraph about how her relationship with her father had progressed over the years. "I haven't really spoken to him, to be honest, for a while. The last time I texted him was on Father's Day and he texted back saying, 'Thank you.' We haven't connected for a while," she remarked.
Lily Allen had a turbulent upbringing
With Lily Allen's father out of the picture, her mother Alison Owen married comedian and actor Harry Enfield. The singer and her siblings were content for a time, but their mom developed a habit of partying and using drugs that led to their stepfather ending the relationship after five years. Back in May 2006, as Allen was becoming something of a household name, she told The Observer in an interview about her early home life. "I had quite a turbulent upbringing. It was middle-class and everything was quite comfortable, but everyone was mental," she said.
Allen was often left to her own devices and she developed a rebellious streak. She started drinking, using drugs, having sex, and attended nine schools, ultimately dropping out at just 15 years old. During her July 2006 interview with The Independent, Allen explained that she doesn't regret the difficulties she faced, saying, "I'm very happy with myself. If I hadn't had the upbringing I've had, then I wouldn't be the person I am, so I'm very grateful. I feel like I've dealt with a lot of emotional s*** that people don't normally deal with until their twenties or thirties and I'm already on my way to figuring out happiness."
She sought legal protection from paparazzi in 2009
Tabloid journalists and paparazzi photographers have notoriously treated celebrities poorly, especially back in the noughties. From upskirting stars to hounding them day and night, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Amy Winehouse were unfortunately well-known victims of these antics, as was Lily Allen.
In 2009, the "22" lyricist obtained legal protection under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 from Big Pictures and Matrix Photos, two picture agencies, and several photographers after a paparazzo's vehicle crashed into her car. It was ordered that photographers could no longer follow her, approach her outside her home, or take pictures of the singer while she was inside her residence. While Allen was reportedly thrilled with the outcome, the culmination of harassing behavior toward the singer could have been easily avoided if the appropriate protections had been in place beforehand.
Allen later spoke with the New York Times in August 2023 about the level of attention she had been receiving from the press back then. "It's not a very nice feeling. Especially when you're in your early 20s, and you're still trying to figure out who you are in the world," Allen said.
Lily Allen dealt with an eating disorder
In 2011, Lily Allen and her sister Sarah Owen became the subject of a docuseries, "Riches to Rags," which followed the sisters as they opened their clothing store. In the first episode of the show, the singer revealed she had suffered from an eating disorder known as bulimia nervosa, which caused her to binge eat and then purge.
"There was a point last summer where ... I had an eating disorder. I used to vomit after meals. It's not something that I'm proud of, but I tell you what, a lot of people were constantly telling me how great I looked and I'd be on the cover of every magazine, people going, 'Wow, she looks amazing. Look at how much weight she's lost,'" Allen said. Despite the praise, the singer explained that she simply wasn't happy at this time in her life. "I would like to be the skinniest, mini-est person in the world, but I know I can't do that without being unhappy. I like my food."
If you need help with an eating disorder or know someone who does, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).
Her son was stillborn in 2010
After a handful of public romances, including a relationship with Ed Simons of The Chemical Brothers during which she suffered a miscarriage in 2007, Lily Allen began dating builder and designer Sam Cooper in 2009. The singer became pregnant with their first child in 2010, a son they called George, but they tragically never got to meet him. After dealing with complications throughout the pregnancy, Allen ultimately suffered a stillbirth in August of that year, and the trauma had a massive impact on her.
The "F*** You" singer spoke about the traumatic event while on "The Jonathan Ross Show" in November 2014, saying, "It was the most unfortunate thing that can ever happen to a person. I was very fortunate in the sense that I have a loving partner to go home to and share that experience with." Both stillbirths and miscarriages are sadly very common, as Allen noted. "There are many women, 17 stillbirths in the UK every day that go home and they don't have that support," she explained. "They have to go home and deal with that on their own."
Lily Allen's daughter was born with a life-threatening illness
Despite the devastating stillbirth Lily Allen and Sam Cooper went through in 2010, they held onto one another and had two beautiful daughters, Ethel in 2011 and Marnie in 2013. However, as the couple welcomed their first daughter, they weren't out of the woods yet. Ethel was born with a life-threatening illness called laryngomalacia, where the larynx can collapse into the airway, which required her to undergo surgery as an infant. Unfortunately, Ethel's first operation was unsuccessful and she had to have a second procedure to correct the condition.
Allen explained her daughter's illness while speaking on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs" in June 2014, saying, "'She was working so hard to breathe, to just exist really, and she just wasn't gaining any weight at all, because all of the food she was taking on, she was just expending the energy on this breathing process." Allen described the entire ordeal as being very difficult for her, given what she'd gone through with her son a couple of years prior. Thankfully, the singer's children are doing well today and she has even remarked that she would be open to having more someday.
She spent years abusing drugs and alcohol
Even before Lily Allen found international fame for her music, she had been using drugs and alcohol for years. While speaking on "The Recovery" podcast in January 2021, the singer explained that her problems with alcohol addiction began while attending a Catholic boarding school, where she and some older boys would binge drink on their afternoons off. "I think I became addicted or co-dependent at that point," she said.
During her August 2023 interview with the New York Times, Allen explained she was able to change her behavior around 2018. "From 18 to about four or five years ago just feels like a bit of a haze, because I was literally just off my face the whole time," she recalled. "I was using fame as well — that was an addiction in itself: the attention and the paparazzi and the chaos."
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
Lily Allen's mom thought she'd meet the same fate as Amy Winehouse
When thinking about '00s female singers from London, two big names come to mind: Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse. The two had a surprising amount in common, including their struggles with fame, alcohol, drugs, bulimia, and paparazzi harassment. Of course, Winehouse met a tragic fate in 2011 when she died from alcohol poisoning, and Allen's mother Alison Owen feared her daughter too would meet an unfortunate end.
In March 2024, Owen sat down with The Times, saying, "I think it absolutely was a possibility that the tabloid press would destroy my daughter like they had a hand in doing with Amy." The film producer said that Allen had seen her father praised for his drunken antics and believed she could follow in his footsteps. "She didn't realize it's only OK for men; women get punished for it," Owen said. "These thugs with cameras would wait for her and then say things like, 'I see your single's going down the charts,' or, 'You've put on weight, Lily,' and hope to make her angry or cry."
Her partying escalated while on Miley Cyrus' Bangerz tour
In 2014, Lily Allen went on Miley Cyrus' Bangerz tour to open for the "Wrecking Ball" singer. It's probably not a coincidence that her drinking and drug use began to spiral out of control at this time as well. Before hitting the road, Allen started taking Adderall to lose weight and became addicted.
In addition to her substance use, in her 2018 tell-all memoir, "My Thoughts Exactly," the singer recounted what touring was like for her. "Things escalated in the late summer when I joined Miley Cyrus on her Bangerz tour," she wrote. "(Miley Cyrus, by the way, is great. ... She's a real pro.) After each show, wherever we were in the US, I'd hit a strip club. It became my thing on that tour — a way to come down, and somewhere to go so I didn't have to experience the loneliness of a random hotel room."
Mid-tour, in May 2014, Allen was also admitted to the hospital for severe exhaustion and dehydration, and she was ordered to rest, take multivitamins, and drink more water. Perhaps it was a sign she needed to slow down on all fronts and eventually, in 2018, the "Smile" singer made a major life change and decided to become sober.
Lily Allen admitted to relying on female escorts
Before the release of her memoir, Lily Allen revealed to her Instagram followers that passages of her book may not paint her in the best light and she aimed to get ahead of the story. In September 2018, a couple of weeks before "My Thoughts Exactly" was due to hit shelves, she explained that she had been unfaithful in her marriage to Sam Cooper. "I detail some stuff from my dark days, around the 'Sheezus' era. I slept with female escorts when I was on tour, cause I was lost and lonely and looking for something. I'm not proud, but I'm not ashamed. I don't do it anymore," she wrote.
A few days later, Allen took to "The Kyle & Jackie O Show" to divulge further details about this time in her life. When asked why she preferred female escorts over male escorts, the singer replied, "I can't explain. I didn't want male company. ... I was actually, you know, married. ... I was cheating but .... I can't explain it. I wanted company."
A stalker broke into Lily Allen's home
As long as there have been celebrities, there have been stars with terrifying stalker stories. Sadly, Lily Allen's experience with her stalker was a seven-year-long nightmare that began with a post on Twitter from a man named Alex Gray under the handle @lilyallenRIP. He claimed he had written the singer's track "The Fear," and it didn't take long for his behavior to escalate.
In an April 2016 interview with The Observer, Allen explained, "He would drop off these letters at my record company, my management offices, my sister's shop, my flat. ... I'm not easily scared, so the fact I went to the police with the letters shows how serious I felt it was. Alarm bells were ringing." She kept the police informed of Gray's activity, but there was little that they could do. Allen lived in fear, keeping doors and windows locked at all times, but on one unfortunate evening in October 2015, she left the backdoor unlocked.
In the middle of the night, Gray stormed into Allen's bedroom and began shouting at her. Thankfully, a friend had been staying over and she was able to push the "22" singer's stalker out of the home. Eventually, Gray was found and charged with burglary and harassment, then detained under the Mental Health Act.
She was assaulted by a music industry executive
The #MeToo Movement has emboldened survivors everywhere to speak out, including Lily Allen who opened up about the 2016 sexual assault she suffered at the hands of a music industry executive at Warner Music. The singer first made the allegation against the unnamed figure, who was "in a position of responsibility," in her 2018 memoir.
After getting drunk at a party, she fell asleep in his hotel room and later woke up to him assaulting her. "I do remember immediately while it was happening thinking, even though I'd never met his mom, I was thinking about his mom and how she would deal with the news that her son was a sexual predator. I was prioritizing everybody else in this situation except for myself," Allen wrote. She explained in her book that she didn't report the incident at the time out of fear her career would suffer, or that she wouldn't be believed.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Lily Allen struggled with her split from Sam Cooper
Lily Allen and Sam Cooper's marriage was doomed for some time when the couple finally split in 2016, having endured a heap of traumatic events together. The singer's fourth studio album, "No Shame," dropped in June 2018, around the time that she confirmed her divorce was finalized. In speaking with Rolling Stone, she remarked on the opening song of her album, saying, "It's like chaos, you know? That's where I was when it started. When I set out to write this record the biggest theme from the last four years of my life has definitely been the breakdown of my marriage and that happened possibly because of the chaos that was around at that time."
While Allen and Cooper are now friendly — they share custody of and continue to co-parent their two daughters — it took some time for them to get to that place. When the "Come On Then" singer first learned of her ex-husband's new girlfriend, she told Cosmopolitan in October 2018 that she was nearly sectioned after throwing a water cooler through a window. "It was a build-up of everything and [Sam's new relationship] was the straw that broke the camel's back," Allen explained.
She's struggled to reconnect to herself after several traumatic events
During the pandemic, Lily Allen relocated from London to New York with her husband, David Harbour of "Stranger Things" fame, and her two children. As she explained in a June 2023 interview with Hunger Magazine, living in New York has been easier on her as she feels more recognizable in London. In The Big Apple, she has become involved in acting on stage and has been granted the anonymity to recover privately from all that happened to her while she was living in The Big Smoke.
During her interview, Allen also opened up about the toll that all of these tragic events have had explaining that she has yet to reconnect with herself. "There were a number of things that happened that made me dissociate from my body. There was the stillbirth of my son, the stalking incident, the sexual assault — I felt myself leave my body when they happened, and I don't think I've ever managed to reconnect," she said. "The result has been feeling quite numb, and I think theater and playing to big crowds gets the adrenaline going ... I'm like 'oh I'm f***ing alive again.' It's addictive."