Lily Allen explains why WEST END GIRL was born out of deep despair and how her breakup with David Harbor shaped the most vulnerable album of her career.
Lily Allen has admitted that making her latest album WEST END GIRL was “an act of desperation”.
In an interview with “CBS News,” the singer explained that she didn’t initially view the record as a “commercial venture.” “While I was writing it, I wasn’t really sure if it would ever see the light of day until right before it was released. I kept asking myself, ‘Is this something I want to share with the world?'” she said.
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She continued: “It’s a strange idea that as an artist you ask yourself: Should I really share my thoughts with others as part of my art? It’s kind of crazy that we’ve gotten to this point as humans.”
Allen previously stressed that WEST END GIRL is not a “cruel album” and that she is no longer “confused or angry” despite the circumstances that led to the record.
An album about David Harbor’s affair
WEST END GIRL is Allen’s fifth studio album and first new release in seven years. In interviews, she described it as her most vulnerable work to date. “The album is vulnerable in a way that my music has perhaps never been before – at least not in the context of a whole album,” she explained, according to NME.
Infidelities and sex toys
The record tells in detail about the infidelities that her former husband and “Stranger Things” actor David Harbor is said to have committed. In the songs, Allen sings about affairs, a sex addiction and bags of sex toys from her ex-husband. Costume designer Natalie Tippett recently came forward publicly and confessed to having had an affair with the actor.
The breakup with Harbor put a lot of strain on her, Allen said in interviews after the album’s release, and almost jeopardized her abstinence.
Separation from Stranger Things actor David Harbour
Allen was recently in a relationship with actor David Harbour, known from the series “Stranger Things”. According to NME, the two met in 2019 on the dating app Raya. They married in September 2020 in an intimate ceremony in Las Vegas.
Rumors of a separation first emerged at the beginning of this year. Earlier this year, Allen said she had checked into a therapy facility to deal with the “emotional turmoil” of the breakup, according to NME.