With her frequent swears, inability to give too many fucks and a slightly combative streak, many hardline haters will write Lily Allen off as a bad example. However, the Sheezus star has set out on a mission: to uncover just how unglamorous the showbiz world has become.
Criticising the glossy world of celebrity, it turns out that it’s not just those she name-checks – Cara Delevingne, Jourdan Dunn and Rita Ora – that she doesn’t care about (and in fact, she sort of does, she says so in the interview), but that she thinks everyone is a bit of a dick.
‘I feel like the general public should know what an arsehole everybody is,’ she told Q Magazine. ‘Everyone’s so scared about protecting this idea of fabulous showbiz glamour and the reality is we’re all just sucking off some rich dude who owns a vodka brand.’
She added: ‘That’s what we see as an achievement. Maybe people want to believe in it. I believed in it when I was a kid and then I got here and I was disappointed. I want to tell everyone they’re lying.’
The Hard Out Here singer also said that before she settled down with husband Sam Cooper in the Cotswolds, having two children, she was living recklessly and in a way she’d no longer show off about. ‘It was drug-fuelled, alcohol-fuelled, unprotected sex. It was dangerous and totally unglamorous.’
Luckily, she feels like she’s in the right place right now: ‘I’ve never, ever felt as stable as I do now.’
The pop star, who might right this moment be celebrating her number one album with a Dioralyte instead of a Dom Perignon, also insisted that we haven’t heard the best from her yet: ‘I don’t want to slag off my own work because I am proud of this record, but I think there’s better stuff in the past as well.’
Still, though she’s now happy to roll her eyes at the celebrity rat race, recently revealing that it costs a whopping £25,000 to go to the Met Ball, she’s not totally devoid of edge these days. Speaking about that spat with Azealia Banks (remember her? She released a great song in 2011, only one year after Lily’s short-lived retirement), she pointed out that Azealia’s rude remarks provided her with great lyrical ammunition: ‘Actually, it was a relief because I couldn’t find my voice and then this girl started a war with me and I got angry and it ignited a creative flame. Thanks, bitch.’
*You can read the entire, brilliant interview in the June issue of Q, out tomorrow. *
**Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.