Lily Allen has continued to lay bare the wreckage of her marriage to David Harbour with the release of a new video to accompany her revenge album.
The singer has shared a look at the ‘visualiser’ clip for Tennis, track number four from the album West End Girl.Â
The video sees Lily dressed in black and sitting on a park bench as two men carry a funeral floral arrangement spelling ‘husband’ into shot.
A despondent Lily doesn’t flinch as the men dump the flowers in the bin before a tennis ball is thrown at her.Â
The song, Tennis, sees Lily namecheck Madeline, a women she accuses a partner of having an affair with after seeing a text message from her appear on his phone.
Through lyrics Lily uses the racquet sport as a metaphor for sex as she sings: ‘So I read your text, and now I regret it.’
Lily Allen has continued to lay bare the wreckage of her marriage to David Harbour with the release of a new video to accompany her revenge album
The singer has shared a look at the ‘visualiser’ clip for Tennis, track number four from the album West End GirlÂ
She continues: ‘I can’t get my head round how you’ve been playing tennis/ If it was just sex I wouldn’t be jealous.
‘You won’t play with me and who the f**k is Madeline?’
The singer’s new album was a musical dissection of her marriage to David. The couple married in Las Vegas in September 2020 before their split last year, ending four turbulent years together.
Her lyrics have been described as ‘scathing, devastating and unflinchingly personal’, with tracks telling the story of the painful breakdown of their relationship.
During a recent interview, Lily insisted that she didn’t want to seek ‘revenge’ on her ex-partner and didn’t feel like she was being ‘mean’ by divulging their private lives.Â
However, her lyrics – which she has confessed is a blend of fact and fiction – questions if her ex is a sex addict and recounts finding a plethora of sex toys and condoms at his other apartment, which she dubs ‘Pussy Palace’.
She also recounts confronting David’s mistress because she ‘can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth’.
West End Girl has been critically acclaimed and quickly became the UK’s most-downloaded album of the week, landing at Number 1 on the Official Albums Downloads Chart.Â
The video sees Lily dressed in black and sitting on a park bench as two men carry a funeral floral arrangement spelling ‘husband’ into shot
A despondent Lily doesn’t flinch as the men dump the flowers in the bin before a tennis ball is thrown at her
Lily released her new single, titled Madeline, earlier this month. The singer addresses David’s infidelity with lyrics: ‘I can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth’
Upon the album’s release, the star’s millions of fans took to social media en masse, hungrily asking just who Madeline was – or, as Lily put in lyric form – ‘Who the f*** is Madeline?’
It immediately drew comparisons with a track on Beyonce’s 2016 album Lemonade, which launched worldwide speculation about the identity of ‘Becky with the good hair’ – a woman who allegedly had an affair with Jay-Z.
And while Lily has been at pains to point out that Madeline is, just like Becky, a pseudonym, it has prompted a similar hunt for the real woman who inspired the song and several others on Lily’s rage-filled album, her first in seven years.But it was The Mail on Sunday who exclusively revealed the identity of ‘Madeline’ as Natalie.
The single mother, who lives in New Orleans, spoke to the newspaper from her home in the city’s historic Treme district to admit that she was the woman at the heart of Allen’s new album – and at the centre of her marriage break-up.
The song, Tennis, sees Lily namecheck Madeline, a women she accuses a partner of having an affair with after seeing a text message from her appear on his phone
The singer officially split with Stranger Things star David when she discovered his three-year affair and profile on celebrity dating app, Raya (pictured in 2022)Â
‘Of course I’ve heard the song,’ Natalie had said, rolling her eyes.
‘But I have a family and things to protect. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and I understand this is going on. It’s a little bit scary for me.’
It is understood that Natalie met 50-year-old David, who is 16 years her senior, while filming the Netflix movie We Have A Ghost in 2021, on location in New Orleans.
David was the movie’s leading man, while Natalie worked in the costume department. Their affair reportedly began shortly after shooting started.
David had married Lily, who has two daughters, Ethel, 13, and 12-year-old Marnie from her previous marriage to Sam Cooper, in Las Vegas the year before.
Even after filming ended, Harbour reportedly flew Natalie to his home in Atlanta, Georgia, as the affair continued behind Lily’s back.
But his secret fling was exposed when Allen saw an incriminating text message on his mobile phone, and as her marriage fell apart she turned her heartache into music.
