The Truth About David Harbour's Marriage To Lily Allen

Whether it was love at first sight or more of a slow burn, the marriage between beloved "Stranger Things" star David Harbour and iconic "Smile" singer Lily Allen has revealed the power of strength in numbers. Both celebrities have seen their careers rise since their coupling: from Harbour's turn in "Black Widow" and the fifth season of "Stranger Things" to Allen's debut in London's West End and her return to the Glastonbury Festival stage. Since the two were first spotted in public attending the theater together in 2019, the power couple has portrayed consistent public support and admiration for each other, as well as a deep-seated honesty about their struggles. 

Harbour and Allen often take to Instagram to publicly profess affection, tease their fans with engagement rumors, and even announced their surprise Vegas wedding to their rabid following. In fact, from the moment the pair became Instagram official, Harbour and Allen have been delighting the public with their raw, genuine affection for one another. When their relationship was first made public, many people were surprised at the seemingly random pairing, but a closer look reveals that the two have far more in common than at first meets the eye. 

Lily Allen was married to entrepreneur Sam Cooper from 2011 to 2018. They had two daughters, Ethel and Marnie, and a son, George, who was stillborn. The pair were engaged in Bali and married for a tumultuous five years. Allen wrote about leaving to go on tour while Sam stayed home with the children in her book "My Thoughts Exactly" (via Us Weekly). "I had always assumed I'd chuck my kid over my shoulder and take them around the world," she wrote. "But Sam didn't want that. He didn't think it was a stable environment for them ... I think it was quite selfish. He got to stay at home and have the family that I'd just spent three years making inside me," she continued. "I had to go out and earn money and leave that family behind."

After the couple split, Cosmopolitan reported that she still reacted poorly to the news that Cooper was dating someone else. Cooper married aristocrat India Windsor-Clive and said of his bride, "She is beautiful, wonderful, magical in every way... and she said yes!!!! An extraordinarily lucky man I am. Wow" (via Mirror). The two recently had their first child together, as seen in the Daily Mail.

When the couple had their first date, David Harbour was sporting long hair and was overweight. He was in the process of filming "Black Widow" and needed to beef up to play the Red Guardian, "this dude who's big and violent with tattoos and gold teeth and also needs you to like his jokes," as Harbour told Us Weekly. "It's a true testament to my undeniable charisma when I say that my wife met me at 280 pounds with this beard and this hair."

Lily Allen found him so attractive "as-is" that once he was done filming and began working out and slimming down, "she honestly has some mixed feelings about it." But Harbour didn't find that worrying. On the contrary, he felt it was a good thing to start the relationship, not looking his best. "It's really good to start the relationship from that part, as opposed to being the young, handsome buck and watching yourself degenerate over the years."

As far as Allen's attractive bits, Harbour, in 2019, told People, "I really only look at my girlfriend's eyes until she's turned away from me, and I stare at her stunningly beautiful butt." But a woman's most attractive attribute, according to David Harbour? "A healthy appetite." Hear, hear, David. Hear, hear!

Though David Harbour was sure about his feelings for Lily Allen, it wasn't until a fateful bike ride with Allen's daughters that he knew the time was right to propose. As he told Jimmy Kimmel (via YouTube), he was on a bike ride with Allen's two daughters, Ethel, 9, and Marnie, 8, shortly after the pandemic began. The couple had been quarantined together, along with Allen's children. Marnie kept calling him "Dad" and then changing his name to "David." When Ethel chided her, "He's not our dad!" Marnie adjusted, "He's kind of our stepdad."

"No, he isn't!" snapped Ethel. Marnie parried with the all-encompassing question, "Well, what is he?" Ethel's response? "He's just some guy in our lives!"

Harbour knew without a doubt, "I need to marry this woman immediately."  Although, even after a Vegas wedding in which the girls were flower girls (via Instagram) and the only attendants, Harbour reported to Kimmel with a chuckle, "I'm still just some guy in their lives."

To celebrate their first anniversary on September 7, 2021, Lily Allen posted a bevy of photos of her wedding to David Harbour. The snaps included several candid shots of their fast food reception and featured her daughters, Ethel and Marnie, who were dressed in peach flower girl dresses paired with sneakers. The photos are no longer available via Instagram, but Elle reported that the caption on the initial posting read, "1 year down with this guy. Happy Anniversary baby @dkharbour. I prefer my life with you in it. You can stay." 

When she was asked if the couple planned to have children, Allen told The Sunday Times that she was open to the idea now that her children were getting older but also hinted that it might be necessary to wait a few years. Allen, who has been very open about her battles with sobriety, explained that after fighting so hard for health and well-being that she believes she is in a comfortable space. "I'm in a really good place," she said and added that she is unsure of how a pregnancy might affect her body at this point in her life. "I don't know if I'd mess with my hormones at this particular point."

Though David Harbour played a father on television in "Stranger Things," he had minimal experience with children before marriage. He told the "That Scene with Dan Patrick" podcast that his experience portraying a father in "Stranger Things" helped him connect to his role in the life of his wife's children. 

"The show did open my heart in a lot of different ways. One of the ways that it did was it started to make me realize how thin my existence was without a family," the actor explained. "The fact that this guy [Hopper] was maturing into a father, [it's] something, clearly, that my subconscious was crying out to do. I think it's personally why things are successful, it's because there's some unique alchemy between the performer and the role. I feel like there's something in Hopper that had this deep need for family, and there was something in me that had it, too but that I wasn't even aware of. The role allowed me to do that in my real life, it was a nice test run."

Since taking on the role of stepfather, he's learned how difficult it can be. He told Stephen Boss (via YouTube), "They're British and I'm this cheese-fed American man and they really do like the fact they have an extra jungle gym. They crawl all over me; they make it their job to try to hurt me as much as they can. My lower back is destroyed."

Allen explored a different type of role in 2021 when she appeared as an actor on London's West End in "2:22 — A Ghost Story." She didn't do it without the support of her husband, of course. David Harbour wrote about Allen's debut on Instagram, "Very proud of my slightly nervous, immensely brave, annoyingly talented wife @lilyallen who has her first preview of her play @222aghoststory tonight. Like, that she's acting in!" Allen was nominated for an Olivier award for her performance in the play. The Independent recently confirmed she would star in a new series by Sharon Horgan (of "Catastrophe") for Sky media. The series is called "Dreamland," and In addition to acting, Allen has tried her hand (no pun intended) at a completely different industry, launching a sex toy with the brand Womanizer (via NME). Harbour had nothing but support for her venture, claiming on Instagram, "I'm buying one for my wife."