On Friday, Lily Allen released her fifth album, West End Girl, to huge critical acclaim, with the 40-year-old singer previously stating that it was inspired by the breakdown of her and Stranger Things actor David Harbour’s marriage.
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In case you missed it, the two married in 2020 but confirmed they had split in February of this year after weeks of speculation. At the time, Lily made no secret of how much she was struggling in her personal life, and even took a break from her podcast, Miss Me?, to focus on her mental health.
While Lily has been “prevented from discussing specifically” the “details about the demise of her recent marriage,” she has repeatedly said that things she experienced in her real life are reflected on her album, and that writing the songs were her way of “processing” things that were going on in her “private life.”
So, it’s perhaps unsurprising that listeners were left scandalized when West End Girl told the story of Lily being left heartbroken by a partner who forced her into an open relationship after she landed an acting role in London in the summer of 2021. Despite the couple agreeing on a set of rules that the other woman would be a stranger who her partner only saw for sex, Lily was devastated to learn that he developed an emotional connection and seemingly had fully-fledged affairs behind her back.
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You can read a full breakdown of all of the revelations here, but some of the key parts include Lily referencing the Madonna-whore complex as she reflected on her partner asking: “Why aren’t we fucking, baby?” prior to his request to have sex with other women in “Sleepwalking,” and him not being intimate with her afterward. She sings: “I don’t know if you do it intentionally / Somehow you make it my fault.”
And perhaps the most shocking song on the album is “Pussy Palace,” where Lily discovers that her partner was secretly using their apartment in the West Village as his sex palace, and the eyebrow-raising things she discovered at this home.
“I found a shoebox full of handwritten letters / From brokenhearted women wishing you could have been better / Sheets pulled off the bed / Strewn all on the floor / Long black hair probably from the night before,” she recalls. “Duane Reade bag with the handles tied / Sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside / Hundreds of Trojans, you’re so fucking broken / How’d I get caught up in your double life?”
And with that in mind, it’s perhaps notable that before her and David’s split, Lily spoke openly about her and David’s sex life on her podcast, where she expressed her discomfort at the things he’d request in the bedroom.
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In June 2024, a listener asked Lily and her cohost, Miquita Oliver, if they had ever “kink-shamed” somebody, and Lily began by saying that she has always been incredibly open-minded in the bedroom and referenced how honest she has been about her promiscuity over the years.
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“I’m quite into normalizing everything that people are ashamed about in themselves,” she began. “I was talking to David about this last night; during the breakdown of my last marriage, I was very, very promiscuous and experimental, and I had sex with female sex workers.”
“I wrote about it in my book,” she went on. “Because I felt like I lived in a state of perpetual fear in that period of time, because I’ve always felt like I was about to be sort of gotcha’d by the tabloids. So I knew that this thing existed, and that I’ve been behaving this way, and I thought I was going to take a little bit of the power back and reveal it myself in my book.”
“I did that for two reasons,” Lily continued. “One, to try and reclaim a little bit of the power where that conversation was concerned, but also because I think that lots of other people have done the same thing, and I think that when they hear someone like me talk about their own experiences in a non-shameful, sort of matter-of-fact way, then it makes people feel better about themselves.”
“So I’m always wanting to do that,” she concluded. “To me, that’s what art is; that’s what creativity is; helping people come to terms with their own behavior, and behavior that society sometimes looks down on, but we’re all just human, right?”
However, seemingly thinking out loud, Lily then said: “I wonder if I kink-shame my husband. Because he quite often asks for things, and I’m like: ‘No babe, it’s not happening.’”
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It goes without saying that nobody should ever feel pressured to take part in any sexual acts that they are not comfortable with — in their marriage or otherwise — and that saying “no” to these acts does not equate to kink-shaming your partner.
“I’m not like: ‘You piece of shit, how dare you ask me to do that!’” Lily joked. “I’m just like: ‘Hmm, headache. Little headache, got a bit of a headache — maybe not tonight.’”
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Throughout the rest of the podcast, which was recorded just months before Lily and David’s split, Lily repeatedly referenced times she had been experimental in the bedroom when she was younger, and admitted that David would be wondering where her “sexy” side had gone.
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“Oh my god, I really hope my husband doesn’t listen to this show,” she exclaimed. “He’s going to just be like: ‘Where? Where is this person that’s doing all these sexy things?’ Like: ‘Why are you lying to everyone that you’re this liberated…’”
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“David would love this! David would love this kinky bitch!” Miquita interjected, before asking her friend: “So why do you think this kinky bitch has gone? Where did she go?”
“I think the alcohol had quite a lot to do with the kink for me,” Lily admitted. “Before I got together with David, I don’t think I’d ever had sex not drunk, actually. Unless, maybe, like, morning sex, but still a bit drunk and definitely high.”
Lily has been sober since 2019, and previously told Glamour: “I actually don’t even know if I’d be alive, if I’m honest, if I hadn’t got sober. Sobriety has just changed my life immeasurably.”
In recent months, the star has admitted that she almost relapsed in response to her marriage breakdown, which is also referenced on West End Girl.
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It’s worth mentioning that David has not publicly responded to the jaw-dropping album, and he has thus far only made one comment about his and Lily’s split. In April of this year, the actor told GQ: “I’m protective of the people and the reality of my life. There’s no use in that form of engaging [with tabloid news] because it’s all based on hysterical hyperbole.”
What do you make of Lily’s resurfaced comments? Let me know down below!
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