{"id":146055,"date":"2025-10-26T10:30:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T10:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/146055\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T10:30:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T10:30:24","slug":"lily-allen-opens-up-about-writing-her-tell-all-album-west-end-girl-everything-had-blown-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/146055\/","title":{"rendered":"Lily Allen opens up about writing her tell-all album West End Girl: \u2018Everything had blown up\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Lily Allen<\/a> has opened up about making her explosive new album<\/a> West End Girl, saying she wrote it in 10 days after her life had \u201cblown up\u201d.<\/p>\n

The British singer and actor, 40, made the record \u2013 her first in seven years \u2013 after the 2024 breakdown of her marriage to Stranger Things<\/a> star David Harbour<\/a>, 50.<\/p>\n

She has described the album, released on Friday <\/a>(24 October), as \u201ca mixture of fact and fiction which I hope serves as a reminder of how stoic yet also how frail we humans can be\u201d.<\/p>\n

The album covers many themes, including cheating, gaslighting, open relationships and sex addiction. <\/p>\n

In a five-star review<\/a>, The Independent\u2019s Hannah Ewens wrote: \u201cIt\u2019s not just confessional pop, it\u2019s obliterative; an emotional post-mortem carried out in public, a death-by-a-million-cuts account of a thoroughly modern marriage breakdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, speaking in a new interview with The Times Magazine<\/a>, Allen said: \u201cI was really depressed. I thought I didn\u2019t have any good songs left. My writing had been really bad and it took something to happen in my life, for everything to be blown up, for me to be able to go, \u2018Oh, here she is.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lily<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Lily Allen and David Harbour (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cTraditionally in my life, when traumatic things happened, I\u2019ve taken time to step away. I certainly don\u2019t think I could have got up on stage days after losing a child [Allen suffered a stillbirth in 2010]. But that is probably more of an anatomical thing. And there are levels to the humiliation \u2013 right?\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer, who rose to fame aged 21 with irreverent Noughties hit singles \u201cSmile\u201d and \u201cLDN\u201d, admitted that her new album will ruffle feathers. \u201cIt will p*** off lots of people,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

But she does not seem too worried about the reaction. \u201cTime will tell,\u201d she said. \u201cI am a 40-year-old mother of two teenagers \u2013 it\u2019s just not that big a deal.\u201d Allen has two daughters, Ethel Mary Cooper and Marnie Rose Cooper, with her ex-husband, builder Sam Cooper. She would not be drawn on whether Harbour or her children have listened to West End Girl.<\/p>\n

Of her decision to make the record, she said: \u201cNobody knew what was going on in my life. So I got into the studio, cried for two hours and then said, \u2018Let\u2019s make some music.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lily<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Lily Allen (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In the same interview, Allen talked about how, despite everything, she has enjoyed living in New York \u2013 where she moved to be with Harbour, who is American \u2013 because of the anonymity it gives her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I walk into a room in this country [the UK],\u201d she said, \u201cI feel I am fighting against a tabloid version of myself \u2013 I want to prove I am not that person they read about. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel judged in America the way I do here. It is residual trauma from being followed around by 50 guys with long-lens cameras when I was 21, and then the words that came with the photos the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen married Harbour in 2019 after meeting on Raya, an exclusive dating app popular among celebrities and other high-profile figures.<\/p>\n

She revealed earlier this month that she entered a treatment facility following their separation last year as she struggled with intense feelings of despair and almost relapsed after six years of sobriety.<\/p>\n

The singer told British Vogue<\/a> that she had \u201cwanted to die\u201d but \u201cfeels OK\u201d now after finding a sponsor and going to daily meetings on top of medication, therapy and antidepressants.<\/p>\n

Over the course of her Brit Award-winning and Grammy-nominated career, Allen has released five albums: Alright, Still (2006), It\u2019s Not Me, It\u2019s You (2009), Sheezus (2014), No Shame (2018) andWest End Girl (2025).<\/p>\n

In recent years she has moved into acting, having performed in plays including 2:22: A Ghost Story, The Pillowman and Hedda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-146055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115440007564705372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}