Lily Allen has opened up about motherhood in a new interview, describing how it's had a knock-on effect on her music career.
The Smile singer is mum to daughters Ethel, 12 and Marnie, 11 with ex-husband Sam Cooper, and told the Radio Times Podcast that prioritising them has 'totally ruined' her pop career. Her last album, No Shine, was released in 2018 and she's since turned a hand to acting.
Lily - who was born in Hammersmith and now lives in New York with her husband, Stranger Things actor David Harbour said, 'My children ruined my career. I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop stardom, they totally ruined it.
‘I get really annoyed when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t.'
She added, 'Some people choose their career over their children and that’s their prerogative, but my parents were quite absent when I was a kid. I feel like it left some nasty scars that I’m not willing to repeat on mine.'
Lily's father, actor Keith Allen, walked out on her mum, film producer Alison Owen, when Lily was four years old. The singer, 38, has previously shed light on her tense relationship with her dad, referring to him in her 2018 memoir My Thoughts Exactly as a 'self-saboteur' who 'couldn't channel his comedic gifts into a proper career'.
Years prior to her book hitting shelves, Lily also wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that Keith hadn't watched her headline Latitude Festival, and that she'd 'probably spent more time walking my dogs than I have with my dad my entire life'.
Then in 2021, after making her West End debut in 2:22 A Ghost Story, she revealed they haven't 'spoken or connected for a while'.
Lily's recent comments on motherhood are not the only time she has lifted the lid on raising her daughters. In 2014, ahead of her album Sheezus breaking another hiatus from the music industry, she told France's NRJ Radio, 'Why did I choose to come back? I ran out of money! No, I'm joking. I thought I'd be a really happy mum just sitting at home, playing with my kids, that was my dream.
'I love my children, but I'm a very impatient, busy person naturally so two babies, neither of them can talk, it was quite boring! Staying at home all day talking to people that can't talk back.
'I didn't realise how much of a creative person I am and that I need somewhere to put my creativity.'
She also touched on her new music at the time 'being a different kind of me'. 'When I write music now I'm conscious that I have two children and they're going to hear it. I can't be too sexy or gross or rude because that would be embarrassing for them,' she said.
Millie Payne is a News and Entertainment Writer for Grazia. She has specialised in showbiz interviews, features, articles and roundups for over three years and loves combining her love for writing, talking and all things popular culture.