Six months after problems in Lily Allen’s marriage were first hinted at, it appears relations between the singer and her husband Sam Cooper are more strained than ever. According to a source close to the star, she hasn’t spent any significant time with Sam for almost a month, and their daughters, Ethel, three, and Marnie, two, split their time between both parents.
‘The popular consensus among Lily’s friends is that the marriage is all but over,’ the insider told Grazia last week. ‘She’s in LA at the moment working on new music, so she’s buried her head in the sand. It feels like she’s putting off the inevitable because she’s loath to make any kind of public announcement.’
Now it is being speculated that Lily’s close friendship with Skepta could have contributed to her relationship issues. Lily is a long-time fan of the rapper who, back in 2013, tweeted, ‘Oooh yeah. Saw Lily Allen last night in London. She said she’s a big fan of my music. Don’t know if she meant it but still, I felt so sexy.’
According to associates, Lily has been leaning on Skepta – who is said to be newly single – during the hard last few months of her marriage. ‘They share a mutual admiration and have enjoyed spending time together,’ said one friend. ‘Lily’s been introduced to his brother, and even talked about making her next album grime. Sam moves in very different circles, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Lily’s preoccupation with Skepta has become a point of contention between them.’
Since becoming close, Skepta and Lily are said to have developed an ‘intense’ relationship, mired in ups and downs. In August, she reportedly ‘lunged’ at him at a Fashion Week party, fleeing in tears after he ‘blanked her’. Just weeks earlier, he cropped her out of a picture posted on Instagram, but by October they appeared to have made it up, and Lily was seen in the crowd supporting him at Bestival.
Meanwhile, the last time Lily, 30, and Sam, 37, were pictured together was at Notting Hill Carnival at the end of August, when Lily posted a Snapchat of a friend waving a bag of white powder (helpfully captioned ‘drugs’). She’s since said to have been persuaded by her management to delete the app. The same month, another friend of Lily’s, Lethal Bizzle, asked a reporter, ‘Is [Lily] married still? I thought she was single.’** *****