I listened to Lily Allen’s new album, West End Girl, last night, and it’s good – I’ll give her that.
As I’m sure you’ve heard, it’s basically a tell-all about being allegedly cheated on by her now ex-husband, Stranger Things actor David Harbour.
Poor Lily. Every lyric, every song – from Madeline to I Deserve Better – takes you on a dramatic journey of betrayal, heartbreak, public humiliation and bitterness.
It’s raw, vulnerable, brutally honest. Hats off to her, she’s brave.
Would I want my mess aired out for people to judge, snigger at, or – worse – pity me? Absolutely not. But I’m not an artist, and I’m not trying to sell an album.
But I do have a cheating ex – and let me tell you, Lily: I can relate to the pain you’re going through. While you smartly turned your heartbreak into an album that’ll no doubt make you millions, mine arrived via a text from the other woman.
No soundtrack, no chorus, no dramatic press tour; just the words, short, sharp and carrying a mighty sting: ‘Amanda, you don’t know me, but we need to talk.’
And just like that, the illusion of my lovely relationship was shattered in an instant.
This woman wasn’t a friend, acquaintance or colleague. Just a beautiful soul who believed in the sisterhood, and wanted to protect another woman – a stranger, me – from the man I thought I was in an exclusive relationship with.
Look, I’m not Lily Allen – I’m not going to spill every detail. I have to protect my privacy, and his doubtless shattered ego.
But let me just say this.
When I was receiving the daily ‘good morning, gorgeous’ text that lifted my spirits each time I opened my eyes, so was she. At exactly the same time.
When he was cooking for me, he was also mentally storing away the recipe so he could make the same meal for her.
While I was reading back his texts thinking that maybe, just maybe, this time I’d found a good one, he was elsewhere scrolling on Hinge.
I don’t need to tell you the rest, ladies. Most of us have been there before, haven’t we? We know how it ends.
This other woman and I swapped details, she sent me his texts, and I forwarded them to him. Our short but seemingly honest romance ended fast and painfully – with my pride in tatters, but a dignified ‘I wish you the best’ message that killed me to write.
So I had been cheated on. I didn’t see it coming. I’m always saying how well I think I know men, and yet here I was: blindsided.
Now, I’m not asking for sympathy, far from it. No one likes to be pitied.
Fortunately, this woman was older, kind, and genuinely compassionate. If you’re reading this: thank you for saving both of us the time, energy and heartache of sharing a man who was never worth it to begin with (she gave him the boot too).
As I read the headlines about Lily Allen this week, I thought how terrible it must have been for her to enter into a relationship so publicly, only for it to crumble in the most humiliating way.
I found myself suddenly grateful I had never once mentioned this man on my Instagram. It saved me the embarrassment of having to put up a ‘statement’ to my 34,000 followers about why they wouldn’t be seeing him again.
But that’s not the only difference between Lily and me.
Because while Lily may be heartbroken, her relationship history isn’t exactly lily-white.
And that fact makes it really hard for me to sympathise – even empathise – with her right now. And I know I’m not the only one.
When I heard allegations of David cheating, my first thought wasn’t to valiantly leap to Lily’s defence as many women had (‘How could you, David?!’) Instead, I thought of Nicole Appleton, the British singer and former wife of Oasis star Liam Gallagher.
Lily had joined the mile-high club with Liam on a flight to Japan when he and Nicole were still married. This is no tawdry Popbitch rumour – she admitted it years later in her memoir, My Thoughts Exactly.
She called it a ‘drunken mistake’ – the oldest excuse in the cheater’s playbook – adding: ‘Surely the point of sha**ing Liam Gallagher is being able to tell everyone about it?’ (For what it’s worth, Lily says she didn’t know Gallagher was married at the time.)
We all make mistakes – sure – but forgive me if I’m not reaching for the world’s tiniest violin right now. The fact remains: you sing about being betrayed by a man who broke your heart, yet once did exactly the same thing to another woman and wrote about it in a salacious autobiography.
Poor Nicole.
And in that same memoir, did you not also confess to cheating on your first husband, Sam Cooper? You admitted paying for sex with female escorts while on tour in 2014, declaring, ‘I’m not proud, but I’m not ashamed.’
Hmm. Personally, I’d be a little bit ashamed, but I guess that’s where we differ, Lily. You seem to have great difficulty with taking ownership of your actions.
Sam probably felt as humiliated as you feel now. Isn’t that irony at its finest?
Karma is the right word. What goes around comes around. The Chinese have a saying I love: ‘If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.’
And the thing about karma is, it doesn’t happen overnight. You perhaps thought the mistakes of your 20s were a thing of the past. Forgotten. Written off. Spent.
That’s not how it works.
I can only imagine Nicole must be smiling inside right now – who could blame her?
Now, I’m not saying Lily deserved it. I know the pain of being lied to and cheated on and – genuinely – I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.
But come on, love. It’s a bit rich to play the victim when your own past is a gallery of chaos – most of it your handiwork.
Maybe your album is therapy, maybe it’s revenge, maybe it’s just a way to make money – and I don’t blame you: that’s your career.
Lily, you and I have both been through the wringer lately. But here’s a truth you need to hear: you don’t get to play the victim when you’ve been the villain.
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