This morning, ‘Lily Allen Dan Wootton’ was a trending search term on Google after the 38-year-old singer called out the tabloid editor and broadcaster for ‘relentless bullying’ over the years. Sharing a screenshot of one of Dan Wootton’s tweets from 2015, the GB News host had shared a picture of The Sun’s frontpage which showed Lily Allen collapsed on the ground at Glastonbury festival, with the caption ‘WHAT A MESS, but finally exposed’.
Allen has been open about her struggles with drug and alcohol addiction since childhood, and recently celebrated four years of sobriety. The picture of her on the ground at Glastonbury that The Sun printed in 2015 was one of many harmful headlines printed about Lily Allen since she rose to stardom after the release of her first album, aged just 21.
‘Whilst I’m able to take responsibility for my own actions I can hand on heart say that a big part of the reason I would get myself into these states was because of the relentless bullying and constant surveillance and scrutiny this man had me under,’ Lily said on Twitter. ‘FOR NO REASON. Anyway, karmas a bitch. I couldn’t be happier at this time in my life. absolutely thriving.’
Dan Wootton has not directly replied to Allen’s tweet but has responded to the allegations she’s thought to be referring to within it when she say’s ‘Karmas a bitch’. Lily’s tweet comes a day after Dan Wootton was accused of bribing men for explicit material – claims he denies. Byline Times published the allegations against Dan Wootton, the result of a three-year-investigation, alleging he ‘hid behind fake online identities to trick and bribe scores of men into revealing compromising sexual material’ and that he ‘targeted journalistic colleagues, friends and members of the public for at least 10 years.’
On GB News last night, Dan Wootton denied all criminal wrongdoing. ‘I have been the target of a smear campaign by nefarious players with an axe to grind,’ he said. ‘I, like all fallible human beings, have made errors of judgement in the past. But the criminal allegations being made against me are simply untrue.’
Wootton alleged that one of his accusers, Alex Truby, is an ex-partner he was previously abused by. Alex Truby, who dated Wootton for four years, has denied allegations of abuse. Truby had previously posted a thread on Twitter that alleges he made the discovery about Wootton after finding his hard drive in 2013. The publishers of the Sun and MailOnline say they are looking into allegations against him.
Wootton claims he is the victim of a ‘witch hunt’, saying ‘I would like nothing more than to address [the] spurious claims. I could actually spend the next two hours doing so, but on the advice of my lawyers I cannot comment further.’
Now though, attention has turned to Wootton’s feud with Lily Allen, after her tweet about ‘Karma’ went viral. This morning, she added further context to her tweet.
‘Following on from my tweet yesterday, I see that some think I was blaming Dan Wootton for my dependencies,’ Allen wrote. ‘I don’t expect people to understand the pain associated with being harassed in the very public way that I was for a good 15 years, but just because you can’t understand it, it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen, it did. Peaches Geldof, Amy Winehouse, and Caroline Flack were all bullied and abused, subjected to the same kind of harassment that I and many others were, and at the same time.
We were female, young, well paid, brilliant at our jobs, vulnerable and relatable, and for that we needed to be destroyed.
Lily allen
‘It was the culture back then, we were fair game, because we were female, young, articulate, well paid, brilliant at our jobs, vulnerable and relatable, we all wore our hearts on our sleeves and spoke our truths,’ Allen continued. ‘And for that we needed to be destroyed. I can’t speak for the women above and neither can they, for obvious reasons, but I know how trapped I felt, how lonely and isolated I was, how scared I was, how unfair and desperate it all felt and how substances and alcohol felt like the only way to escape.’
Allen went on to say that the irony of Wootton claiming he is ‘victim of a smear campaign’ is not lost on her, and perhaps now he can see what her life felt like for all those years. ‘I actually wish him well,’ Allen concluded. ‘I hope that he comes out the other side of whatever it is that he is facing, and that eventually it leads him to a place of happiness, peace and truth.’
Her tweet has been well received by supporters, many of whom agree that the way in which her substance abuse issues were used to sell newspapers was never appropriate. It’s certainly shocking to look back on now, to recall how a young woman in a vulnerable state would be photographed and plastered all over front pages with sensationalist and harmful headlines shaming her for suffering from addiction issues.
And it wasn't just The Sun's front page, documenting Lilly's struggles with alcohol and drugs became routine for many tabloids in the late noughties. When she accidentally snorted ketamine at the Glamour Awards in 2008 (thinking it was cocaine), she became incapacitated and was carried out by security, immediately papped and then, instantly making front pages. The idea of a nepo baby falling from grace, following in the footsteps of other talented young women for whom fame was crippling, it was a morbid obsession for tabloid editors. And while she herself admits she made mistakes, particularly that public feud with Cheryl Cole, it's true that tabloids at the time revelled -and manipulated- in the downfall of young, talented women. Any perceived 'bad behaviour' on their part then, whether that meant falling over drunk one night or being a bit brash in interviews, only allowed tabloids to justify sexism-fuelled campaigns. Not a thought was given to what they were going through, nor how the narratives would impact them.
'I think one of my big struggles with being famous in my early 20s was that there was a constant running commentary telling me who I was,' Allen told The Guardian in 2018. 'So for somebody who didn’t have a sense of self, who was desperately trying to find out who they were, to have people going, "You’re this and you’re worthless and you’re a piece of shit"… you believe it.'
It’s undoubtable then that Lily Allen deserves an apology from those who exploited her pain and trauma, whether she’ll ever get one from anyone remains to be seen.