Lily Allen has said her new album, 'West End Girl' was inspired by her “deep-rooted issues with rejection and abandonment” following her divorce from husband David Harbour.
While this will mark her first album in seven years, the singer has been making a life for herself on stage in that time, including theatre debuts in the 2021 play 2:22 A Ghost Story and 2023’s The Pillowman. She has also starred as Elizabeth Taylor in the 2019 film, How To Build A Girl, and Mel in the 2023 comedy series, Dreamland.
Now, Allen, whose album arrived yesterday (October 24) has said that it is about "sorrow and pain", adding that the separation from her husband had an impact on her well being, and threatened her sobriety.
“I have deep-rooted issues with rejection and abandonment which I’ve been tussling with for most of my adult life and probably quite a lot of my childhood as well. And I was having, like an extreme reaction to things at the time", she said.
Adding that "such things" included the breakdown of her marriage, she continued: “It’s hard for me to not have my person, you know? And I am quite a codependent person. And I find it difficult to lean on the people who are available to me when I’m missing the comfort and stability of what is not available to me".
“I know that what I have to do is to be able to make myself happy and that is a source of extreme irritation for me,” she continued, going on to recall the “humiliation and shame” that comes with dating in your 40s", she added.
“It means doing the f****** work, and I feel like I’ve been doing the work for fucking ages. I’m exhausted by it. And I thought it was done. I thought it was happily ever after, you know?”.
Elsewhere, Lily Allen said that she agrees with the host about how open marriages and polyamory do not work for many relationships, and often lead to women being referred to as “uncool or uptight” if she does not want to take part.
“Do I think that that’s true? Yeah, I do. And it seems to me that younger people find it easier to embrace as a concept,” she shared. “Maybe the 2.4-children-nuclear-family thing has not been rammed down their throats quite as much, so it’s not so much in their wiring. But it’s not something I ever thought about when I was younger or going into either one of my marriages".
Back in February, Lily Allen had explained how "accepting pain", and hinted about getting a new tattoo, amid her recent split from husband David Harbour. More on this here.
