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Although Lily Allen’s moving new album West End Girl reflects the dissolution of her marriage to Stranger Things actor David Harbour, the singer confirmed she no longer feels “confused or angry” about the situation.
In a conversation with Mel Ottenberg for the “Interview Magazine” Allen explained that her album is not about getting revenge on her ex. Regarding the album, Ottenberg asked, “Should we call it a revenge tour?”
“It’s not that,” Allen replied. “I wrote this album in 10 days in December and I see the whole situation completely differently now. We all go through breakups and it’s always bloody brutal. But I don’t think you feel the need to write about it that often while you’re in the middle of it.”
Allen stressed that West End Girl isn’t a reckoning: “That’s the beauty of this album: it’s like an emotional roller coaster. At the time I was really trying to process things and that’s great for the album, but now I’m not confused or angry. I don’t need revenge.”
The singer explained that part of the album is “based on truth and part is fantasy.” She added: “It’s not a cruel album. I don’t feel like I’m being mean. It was just the feelings I was processing at the time.”
About breakups, friends and dating apps
Ottenberg asked her how she managed to get over her heartbreak. “I think you just have to go out and socialize,” Allen said. “I’m guilty of focusing everything on one person in a relationship. Then when that person leaves, I feel completely abandoned, and it takes me a while to realize, ‘I can actually rely on my friends in these situations.'”
Allen also admitted that she used dating apps after her split from Harbor – an experience she found difficult as a woman in the spotlight. “They’re terrible, especially when you’re heartbroken,” she noted. “There’s nothing more depressing than hundreds of people who look nothing like the person you miss. … I’m not really interested in dating another famous person.”
She also said she was banned from Hinge “for identity fraud” but is still active on Raya. “I’m not in a relationship, but there are some people I’m seeing,” she said.
West End Girl is a new chapter
Allen and Harbor married in 2020. “West End Girl” is her first new album in seven years, following 2018’s “No Shame.” It features 14 tracks recorded over 10 days in Los Angeles late last year with her music director Blue May before being completed in New York and London.
“The record shows vulnerability in a way my music has perhaps never done before – at least not over the course of an entire album,” Allen said in a statement. “I’ve used shared experiences as the basis for songs that attempt to explore why we as humans behave the way we do. So the album is a mix of fact and fiction, hopefully a reminder of how stoic but also how fragile we humans can be. In that respect, I think it’s an album about the complexities of relationships and how we all deal with them.”