Lily Allen has admitted she ‘had children for all the wrong reasons’ in a heartbreaking attempt to find ‘unconditional love’.
The singer, 39, shares daughters Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 11, with ex-husband Sam Cooper and candidly revealed how she hoped pregnancy would help her pause her “high-speed” career and mend a love she had “not felt since I was a little girl”.
Her father is actor Keith Allen, 70, who walked out on her mother Alison Owen, 63, when Lily was four, and she has been open about their troubled relationship.
In her Miss Me? podcast on BBC Sounds, Lily and her friend Miquita Oliver spoke candidly about how her desire to have children came from a search for a love she herself hadn’t felt.
“I think I had kids for the wrong reasons, actually, because I longed for unconditional love, something I haven’t felt in my life since I was a little girl,” she said.
Lily Allen admits she ‘had kids for the wrong reasons’ in heartbreaking bid to find ‘unconditional love’
The singer, 39, shares daughters Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 11, with ex-husband Sam Cooper and candidly revealed how she hoped pregnancy would help her pause her career and mend a love she had “not felt since I was a little girl” (pictured in 2022)
Lily added: ‘Also, my career was going at a very fast pace, there was a lot of pressure and I’m a people pleaser, so I felt very overwhelmed by what was happening.
‘I just didn’t have much respite and I felt like the only way to stop people from bothering me was not about me, but about this other person inside me.
“They left me alone, but I don’t think I really understood what I got myself into.”
After spending years as one of London’s most famous party girls, she moved to the countryside and had children in 2011.
In March, Lily said her two daughters had “totally ruined” her pop career because she decided to prioritise them over work, insisting: “You can’t have it all.”
The singer-turned-actress said she believes women have to decide whether to put their children or their career first, and said she chose the former.
“My kids ruined my career. I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop stardom, they completely ruined it,” she told the magazine. Radio Times Podcast.
“It really bothers me when people say you can have it all because, frankly, you can’t.”
Her father is actor Keith Allen, 70, who walked out on her mother Alison Owen, 63, when Lily was four. She has spoken openly about their troubled relationship (pictured, 2007).
Speaking on her podcast Miss Me?, Lily and her friend Miquita Oliver spoke candidly about how her desire to have children came from a place of searching for a love she herself hadn’t felt.
“I think I had children for the wrong reasons, actually because I longed for unconditional love, which I haven’t felt in my life since I was a child,” she said.
She added: “Some people choose their career over their children and that is their prerogative, but my parents were quite absent when I was growing up. I feel like that left some unpleasant scars that I am not willing to repeat on my own.”
Lily now lives in New York with her children and new husband, Stranger Things star David Harbour, 49, whom she married in 2020 and has since turned to acting.
In 2021, Lily opened up about her contentious relationship with her father Keith, admitting that they “haven’t spoken in a while.”
She said The telegraph‘To be honest, I haven’t talked to him for a while.’
“The last time I texted him was on Father’s Day and he replied saying ‘Thank you.’ We haven’t communicated in a while.”
In 2018, Lily revealed that Keith had been left furious when she claimed she had suffered a “cocaine-induced heart attack” at Glastonbury Festival when she was 13, when it was actually acute food poisoning.
Lily confessed: “I got loads of texts from him this weekend. There was a big article[in the press]and he texted me saying: ‘Hey, cocaine-induced heart attack at Glastonbury. Wow!'”
‘And I said, ‘I’m sorry, that’s what I thought… I’m really sorry if I got it wrong, but that’s how I remembered it and you never explained it to me any other way, so that’s what I wrote,’ and he said, ‘Well, that’s not true.’
I said, “I’m so sorry if I got it wrong. What was it?” And he said, “Acute food poisoning.”
In March, Lily said her two daughters “totally ruined” her pop career because she decided to prioritise them over work, insisting: “You can’t have it all” (pictured in 2019).
She added: “My parents were quite absent when I was growing up. I feel that left some unpleasant scars that I am not prepared to repeat with my parents” (pictured with her father in 2007).
On her bond with her father, she added: “I was close to him and as a teenager I really wanted to build a relationship with him so I used to go and watch Fulham play every Saturday with him and his friends and things were really good at one point.”
Shortly after Lily was born, Keith began a relationship with the wife of a brigadier who lived near the set of a film he was working on in Dorset. By 1989, his marriage to Alison had come to an end.
Lily said: ‘One of my earliest memories is when Mum and Dad split up. We were in our council flat in Bloomsbury and Dad was saying, ‘Mum and I are splitting up.’
In 2015, Lily also tweeted: “My dad walked out on me when I was 4, I’m so sick of this. My dad was at Latitude when I was headlining and he didn’t even come to see me. I’ve probably spent more time walking my dogs than I have with my dad in my entire life.”