Lily Allen gets candid about how becoming a parent 'ruined' her career
Lily Allen believes becoming a parent 'ruined' her career.
The singer shares two girls Ethel Mary, 12 and Marnie Rose, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper. They split their time between the UK and New York, where Lily shares a home with her husband, Stranger Things actor David Harbour.
Lily, 38, spent the 2010's dominating the charts and partying all over London. But, despite enthusing about how much she loves family life and its non-stop treadmill of children's parties, school runs and play dates, she admitted on the Radio Times podcast that she struggles with how society tells women we can 'have it all'.
Joking about how she had to rethink her career, post children, she told Miquita Oliver : ‘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.'
Lily was 21 when she had her first hit with Smile and went on to have international success with albums including The Fear and 22. Since becoming a mum, Lily has embraced acting, enjoying a critically acclaimed stint in West End play 2:22 A Ghost Story, and in the Sky drama Dreamland.
However, she admits that she purposefully limits her time spent working to avoid making repeating the patterns that her parents, film producer Alison Owen and actor Keith Allen, made during her childhood.
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.’
In 2021, Lily was a guest on The Recovery podcast where she expanded on finding it difficult to grow up with parents in the entertainment industry.
She said: 'I needed to be seen. I had spent my whole life being part of this scene of really impressive people and everyone else being prioritised over me ... [My parents] resented my success ... [They] made a sacrifice of really being parents because they had important things to do in the world. As a kid - you know - that was really difficult dynamic to get my head around."
'I think that also my parents ... not my mum but maybe my dad ... was like ... p***** off that they kind of given me the short straw as a kid and then against all odds I had kind of like gone 'f*** off' and done even better than them.
'[They thought] 'This isn’t fair. We didn’t give you the childhood you deserve and we expected you to fail as a result yet here you are having exceeded all our expectations ... All I wanted was affirmation and praise and I didn’t even get it then. I got it from strangers but not the people i wanted it from. In fact I was met by a bit of resentment from those people.'
On the Radio Times podcast, Lily and Miquita, who has been a close friend since childhood, also discussed the perils of fame and how they handle trolls. They also reminisced about the hedonism of the '00s and revealed why they never listened to the advice imparted by their famous family members. Miquita's mum is Great British Menu judge and broadcaster Andi Oliver.
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