Lily Allen has admitted she ‘had kids for all the wrong reasons’ in a heartbreaking attempt to find ‘unconditional love.’
The singer, 39, shares daughters Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper and candidly revealed how she hoped pregnancy would help her pause her ‘high speed’ career and fix a love which she ‘hadn’t felt since being a child.’
Her father is actor Keith Allen, 70, who walked out on her mother Alison Owen, 63, when Lily was four years old, she has been open about their fractious relationship.
Speaking on her podcast Miss Me? on BBC Sounds, Lily and her friend Miquita Oliver, candidly discussed how her desire for children came from a place of searching for a love she hadn’t felt herself.
‘I think I had children for all the wrong reasons really because I was yearning for unconditional love, which I haven’t felt in my life since I was a child,’ she said.
Lily Allen has admitted she ‘had kids for all the wrong reasons’ in a heartbreaking attempt to find ‘unconditional love’
The singer, 39, shares daughters Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper and candidly revealed how she hoped pregnancy would help her pause her career and fix a love which she ‘hadn’t felt since being a child’ (pictured in 2022)
Lily added: ‘Also my career was at such a high speed, you know high pressure and I’m a people pleaser and I felt like very overwhelmed by what was happening.
‘I just didn’t get much respite and I felt like the one way to stop people hassling me, it’s not about me its about this other person that’s inside me.
‘They did leave me alone, but I don’t think I really understood what I got myself into.’
After years spent as one of London’s most notorious party girls, she moved to the country and had children in 2011.
Back in March, Lily said her two daughters ‘totally ruined’ her pop career because she chose to prioritise them instead of 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, saying she chose the former.
‘My children ruined my career. I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop-stardom, they totally ruined it,’ she told the Radio Times Podcast.
‘I get really annoyed when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t.’
Her father is actor Keith Allen , 70, who walked out on her mother Alison Owen, 63, when Lily was four years old, she has been open about their fractious relationship (pictured 2007)
Speaking on her podcast Miss Me?, Lily and her friend Miquita Oliver, candidly discussed how her desire for children came from a place of searching for a love she hadn’t felt herself
‘I think I had children for all the wrong reasons really because I was yearning 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’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.’
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 turned her hand to acting.
Back in 2021 Lily discussed her fractious relationship with father Keith and admitted they ‘haven’t spoken in a while.’
She told The Telegraph: ‘I haven’t really spoken to him, to be honest, for a while’.
‘The last time I texted him was on Father’s Day and he texted back saying ‘Thank you.’ We haven’t connected for a while.’
In 2018, Lily revealed Keith had been left fuming when she claimed he’d suffered a ‘cocaine-induced heart attack’ at Glastonbury festival when she was 13 – when really it was acute food poisoning.
Lily confessed: ‘I got quite a cross text from him this weekend. There was a big piece [in the press] and he texted me, ‘Err cocaine induced heart attack at Glastonbury. Wow.’
‘And I said, ‘Sorry that’s what I thought… I’m really sorry if I got that wrong but that’s how I remembered it and you never explained it to me in any other way so that’s what I wrote’ and he said, ‘Well that’s not true.’
And I said, ‘I’m really really sorry if I got that wrong, what was it?’ And he said, ‘Acute food poisoning’.
Back in March, Lily said her two daughters ‘totally ruined’ her pop career because she chose to prioritise them instead of work – insisting, ‘You can’t have it all’ (pictured in 2019)
She added: ‘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’ (pictured with her dad in 2007)
On her bond with her dad, she added: ‘I was close with him and in my teenage years I really wanted to forge a relationship with him so I used to go and watch Fulham play every Saturday with him and his mates and things were really good at a certain point.’
Soon after Lily’s birth, Keith began an affair with a brigadier’s wife who lived near the set of a film he was working on in Dorset. By 1989, the marriage to Alison had run its course.
Lily said: ‘One of my earliest memories is of when Mum and Dad split up. We were in our council flat in Bloomsbury and Dad was saying: ‘Me and Mum are splitting up now.’
In 2015, Lily also tweeted: ‘My dad walked out on me when I was 4, I’m sick of this. My dad was at Latitude when I headlined and didn’t even come to see me. I’ve probably spent more time walking my dogs than I have with my dad my entire life.’