Singer Lily Allen, on motherhood: “I love my daughters but they ruined my career”

Lily Allen (London, 38 years old) knows what it is like to grow up in a family of artists.

Her father is actor and comedian Keith Allen, her mother is film producer Alison Owen and her brother is actor Alfie Allen.

When Lily was four (and Alfie was three), Keith left home, leaving his two children in the care of her mother.

“Some people choose their career over their children and that's their prerogative, but my parents were pretty absent when I was growing up.

I feel like she left some unpleasant scars that I'm not willing to repeat on mine,” the British singer has now confessed on the

Radio

Times

podcast

.

The past of Lily Allen, now also an actress, is plagued with controversies due to her addiction to drugs and alcohol.

In 2019, in an interview in

The Guardian

,

she claimed

She was surprised that she was not “dead,” and even stated that she had paid for the services of prostitutes

.

“I chose sex over heroin.

I didn't realize it at the time, but addictions can manifest themselves in all kinds of ways.

This helped me block out other things like pain or fear,” she said at the time.

But everything changed with the arrival of her daughters, Ethel Mary, 12, and Marnie Rose, 10, whom she had with her ex-husband, builder Sam Cooper.

“Having children triggered responsibilities,” she said in that same interview.

More information

The rebirth of Lily Allen: away from addictions and with a new husband, it premieres in the theater

However, the singer now laments in the

podcast

, which aired last Monday, March 11, that “you can't have it all” and that by choosing motherhood she had to give up professional success.

“My daughters ruined my career.

“I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop stardom, they completely ruined it,” she admits of her motherhood.

“It really bothers me when people say you can have it all because, frankly, you can't,” she continued honestly.

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A post shared by Lily Allen (@lilyallen)

Currently, the British woman lives in New York with her two daughters and her second husband, Stranger Things

actor

David Harbor (New York, 48 years old), whom she married in 2020 at the Graceland chapel in Las Vegas, including an Elvis impersonator. , with a Dior wedding dress and a family celebration in a hamburger restaurant.

According to her story in

Radio Times

, she chose to “take a step back” from her career to focus on her daughters and she is glad she did because “they are quite complete,” unlike the shortcomings she herself experienced in her childhood.

Motherhood was one of the main themes of the show, but Allen also opened up about her new life away from drugs and alcohol.

“A big part of sobriety is surrendering and letting God, however you want to believe in it, have a plan for you,” she explained.

And she took the opportunity to talk about her new facet in the world of acting.

“I got a call from a

casting

director who was putting on a play [

2:22 A Ghost Story

] in the West End [of Manhattan].

I told her: 'I'm not an actress.'

But then, talking to David, I felt a little directionless and didn't really know what I was doing with my life, except being a mother and establishing a new home in Brooklyn," she says of her arrival in the Big Apple in 2020, when, she says , she had already been sober for two years.

Her husband suggested she call the

casting

director again and five weeks later she was already rehearsing, according to what she says in the

podcast

.

The couple formed by Lily Allen and David Harbor at the 2022 Met Gala.Theo Wargo (WireImage)

Allen's performance in the

thriller 2:22 A Ghost Story

earned her an Oliver Award nomination for Best Actress in 2022. Following that, last year she starred in Martin McDonagh's

The Pillowman

, for which she also received good reviews.

Of course, on a musical level, her latest work dates back to 2018, when she released the studio album

No Shame

.