Lily Allen has hinted towards her and ex David Harbour having an open relationship with ‘boundaries’ as she discussed her former husband in a new interview.
The singer, 40, who has released her first album in seven years where she addresses David’s affair, hit out at how relationship rules were ignored and said dating apps have made people more tempted to cheat.
Lily’s new record, West End Girl, has drawn attention for her explicit and brutally honest lyrics about the breakdown of her four year marriage to David, which ended last December after she accused the actor, 50, of of having multiple affairs.
In her most talked about track, titled Madeline, she appears to directly address David’s infidelity with the mystery woman, who she gives the fictional moniker.
The lyrics see Lily appearing to suggest the couple had an open arrangement in regards to sex, as long as it was discrete, with paid strangers and not based on emotional connection.
She sings: ‘How long has it been going on? Is it just sex or is there emotion?/ He told me it would stay in hotel rooms, never be out in the open.
Lily Allen has hinted towards her and ex David Harbour having an open relationship with ‘boundaries’ as she discussed her former husband in a new interview (pictured in 2023)
The singer, 40, who has released her first album in seven years where she addresses David’s affair, hit out at how relationship rules were ignored and said dating apps have made people more tempted to cheat (seen in June)
‘Why would I trust anything that comes out of his mouth?/I’m not convinced that he didn’t f**k you in our house’.
The chorus reads: ‘We had an arrangement/ Be discrete and don’t be blatant. There had to be payment/ It had to be with strangers/ But you’re not a stranger, Madeline’.
Speaking to The Times, Lily seemingly confirmed that ‘agreed-upon boundaries were not adhered to’ in her relationship with David, while addressing how apps had made cheating easier.
She said: ‘There are usually agreed-upon boundaries in relationships. But whether those boundaries are adhered to or not is becoming a grey area all of a sudden.
‘Dating apps make people disposable and that leads to the idea that if you are not happy, there’s so much more to choose from — right in your pocket.
Lily famously uncovered David’s infidelity when she discovered his profile on celebrity dating app, Raya, and ‘joined the dots’.
The pop star joined the app herself, pretending to be ‘looking for women’ – and allegedly found that her now ex-husband had already set up a dating profile.
Speaking to the publication, she detailed how she believed dating apps were making people ‘disposable’ and changing conventional ideas about monogamy.
While she also addressed the truth behind the songs on her album, including the most talked-about single, Madeline, where she appears to directly address David’s affair with the mystery woman, who she gives the moniker
Her split from David led Lily to check into a £8,000-a-week trauma treatment centre to focus on her mental health.
And she admitted that she has used her music as a way to work through the dark feelings she was having and to ‘lay my truth on the table’.
The mother-of-two said: ‘Nobody knew what was going on in my life. So I got into the studio, cried for two hours and then said, “Let’s make some music”.’
While she admitted that growing up with comedians Keith Allen and Harry Enfield as her father and stepfather, respectively, meant she had learned how to make light of her pain, saying: ‘I hide in music. It is the musical version of what I do in my life.’
The veracity of many of the lyrics from the provocative and blisteringly honest album have been hotly speculated over by fans, with Lily admitting that she took ‘artistic licence’ with her songs.
But she went on to clarify: ‘But yes, there are definitely things I experienced within my relationship that have ended up on this album.’
Lily’s fans have said Madeline is a modern-day equivalent of Beyonce’s ‘Becky with the good hair,’ which featured on a song called Sorry, a cheating diss track from her 2016 album Lemonade.
The song also features spoken interludes from the character of Madeline where she insists to Lily over text: ‘Our relationship has only ever been about sex/ I can promise you that this is not an emotional connection.
The track also sees Lily appearing to suggest the couple had an open arrangement in regards to sex, as long as it was discrete, with paid strangers and not based on emotional connection (pictured in 2022)
‘We don’t speak outside of the time we spend together/ And whenever he talks about you, it’s with the upmost respect’.
Later Madeline adds: ‘I hate that you’re in so much pain right now/ I really don’t wanna be the cause of any upset.
‘He told me you were aware this was going on and that he had your full consent.
‘If he’s lying about that, then please let me know/ Because I have my own feelings about dishonesty/ Lies are not something that I want to get caught up in.’
Earlier this week Lily hinted that her ex-husband ‘refused to give answers’ when asked about his three-year affair with a younger colleague.
Speaking in an interview with Perfect Magazine, the star confessed her marriage to David didn’t help her self-worth, and added that dating again in her 40s is ‘humiliating’.
She explained: ‘I also think that what was going on in my life was really confusing, because I didn’t actually know what was going on in my life. I wasn’t sure what was real, and what was in my head.
‘So there’s a certain amount of, like, joining dots. When you are not given answers, your brain is full of lots of questions.
‘And if nobody’s willing to answer those questions, then your brain starts to answer them for you. And so I think some of that maybe happened here.’
Discussing the break up candidly she continued: ‘I don’t know what I can say. Two people who were once together are not together. And that’s really sad. It’s hard. It’s hard for me to not have my person, you know?
‘And I am quite a codependent person. And I find it difficult to lean on the people who are available to me when I’m missing the comfort and stability of what is not available to me.’
