Lily Allen has revealed that she was plagued by a stalker for seven years, who even broke into her bedroom in one terrifying incident.
The singer says that the ordeal has left her a ‘changed person’, as she awaits the sentencing of Alex Gray, who first appeared on social media in 2009, claiming to having written her hit song, The Fear, and using the handle @lilyallenRIP.
This was followed by abusive letters, rants and suicide threats. “He would drop off these letters at my record company, my management offices, my sister’s shop, my flat,” Allen told today’s Observer.
“It was freaking me out a bit and I’m not easily scared, so the fact I went to the police with the letters shows how serious I felt it was. Alarm bells were ringing. But I felt comforted by the fact that I was telling the police, I was keeping a record,” she said.
But according to Allen, the police did not do enough to help. After seeing threatening signs in the crowd at her concerts, and Gray approaching her assistant and colleagues, Lily repeatedly went to the police, who lent her a panic alarm for a short period of time. She felt so vulnerable, she took matters into her own hands.
“I did all my own digging, got my own lawyer, put measures in place to protect my family,” she said. “I didn’t even know what he looked like.
“I felt very alone. I have some trust issues now, not least with the police. Who can you trust if you cannot trust institutions like the police?”
In October last year, she faced this terrifying incident: “I had had all sorts of metal shutters and locks on the doors but I’d been cooking and burned a pan and opened the back door. I closed it but forgot to lock it when I went to bed.”
In the early hours of the morning, she was woken by a banging sound.
“I sat up and looked and the door handle was twisting round.
“This guy came steaming in and I didn’t know who he was. I recoiled and he ripped the duvet off, calling me a ‘fucking bitch’ and yelling about where his dad is.”
Allen and her friend were able to get the man out of the house.
“There was this second outside my kids’ room when I was terrified to go in, in case of what I might find,” she said.
When she reported the incident, Allen told police she believed the man was her stalker. “But they were uncomfortable with the idea. Then I realised my handbag was missing and the change in atmosphere was palpable, it was like a sigh of relief: ‘now it’s burglary – we understand that’.”
Shockingly, 700,000 women in the UK are stalked every year. Women affected by stalking can contact Paladin, a national stalking advocacy service.