Lily Allen has seemingly named the girl who ex husband David Harbour cheated on her with in the release of her highly-anticipated new album West End Girl.
After a seven year hiatus from the music industry, the record comes after a turbulent time in Lily’s life following the breakdown of her marriage in December after she accused David of having multiple affairs including a his three-year affair with a younger costume designer.
And now there is one question on everyone’s lips – who is the real Madeline? as the singer is believed to have used a pseudonym to hide the girl’s identity in the lyrics.
It isn’t the first time a female songstress has featured poignant lyrics regarding infidelity with Lily following in the footsteps of Beyonce’s ‘Becky with the good hair’ and Dolly Parton’s Jolene.
Lily’s record tells the story of a broken marriage and a series of betrayals with the hitmaker explaining: ‘There are definitely some things that happened in my real life that are reflected on this record.’
With a self titled song dedicated to Madeline, the singer seems to allude to David’s affair as she sings: ‘I can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth’ and repeatedly asks: ‘Who’s Madeline?’
Who’s Madeline? Lily Allen has seemingly named the girl who ex husband David Harbour cheated on her with’ as fans compare her new song to Beyonce’s viral ‘Becky with the good hair’ diss track
Its release comes after a turbulent time in Lily’s life following the breakdown of her marriage to David Harbour in December after she discovered his three-year affair with a younger colleague
Queen B’s smash hit 2016 album Lemonade featured poignant lyrics about cheating as she sang about the mysterious ‘Becky with the good hair’ in her track Sorry.
Fans widely speculated it referred to alleged infidelity by Beyonce’s husband Jay-Z with a woman called ‘Becky’, and theories began circulating online about her identity.
Meanwhile Dolly’s hit Jolene sees the country hitmaker sing: ‘Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene/ I’m begging of you, please don’t take my man’.
And it seems Lily has donned the new ‘Becky with the good hair’, but this time she is called Madeline.
In heartbreaking lyrics in the song Tennis Lily uses the racket sport as a metaphor for sex as she sings: ‘So I read your text, and now I regret it
‘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 song ends with an outro repeating: ‘Da, da-da, da-da, who’s Madeline? (Who’s Madeline?)’ before it ends with: ‘No, but who is Madeline, actually?’
The record tells the story of a series of betrayals with the hitmaker explaining: ‘There are definitely some things that happened in my real life that are reflected on this record’
Queen B’s smash hit 2016 album Lemonade featured poignant lyrics about cheating as she sang about the mysterious ‘Becky with the good hair’ in her track Sorry
It seems Lily has donned the new ‘Becky with the good hair’. Taking to Twitter fans quipped: ‘We got Jolene, Becky with the good hair, and now Madeline’
The following song is then entirely centred on the affair as she appears to suggest the couple had an open arrangement in regards to sex, as long as it was discrete and not based on emotional connection.
Lily 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/ 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 then goes: ‘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’.
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
‘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
You can reach out to me any time, by the way/ If you need any more details or you just need to vent or anything/ Love and light, Madeline’.
Others penned: ‘Now Lily Allen has made me wonder if that guy actually f****d Madeline in their house or not?! I’m obsessed with the storytelling’
Taking to Twitter fans couldn’t believe Lily’s honestly as they quipped: ‘We got Jolene, Becky with the good hair, and now Madeline’;
‘Madeline – the “ Becky with the good hair” of West End Girl – doesn’t escape unscathed’;
‘Lily Allen dropping a whole song confronting the other woman named Madeline…………omg her Jolene is here’;
‘MY GAWD LILY ALLEN CAME OUT SWINGING ON MADELINE’
‘Lily Allen asking who the hell is Madeline, then I realized she made up the name Madeline and she does not know who it is herself when she goes “no but who is Madeline, actually”’
‘Now Lily Allen has made me wonder if that guy actually f****d Madeline in their house or not?! I’m obsessed with the storytelling’;
‘Lily Allen back and singing in my headphones again… and who the f**k is Madeline’;
‘Guys, West End Girl is No Shame (Lily Allen’s Brutally Honest Version)’;
‘I would not want to be David Harbour or Madeleine right now’.
Lily’s representatives declined to comment when approached by the Daily Mail about Madeline’s identity.
Earlier this week Lily hinted that her ex-husband ‘refused to give answers’ when asked about his three-year affair with a younger colleague.
The singer officially split with the Stranger Things star when she discovered his three-year affair and profile on celebrity dating app, Raya.
Actor David and musician Lily married in Las Vegas in September 2020
The pop star joined the app herself, pretending to be ‘looking for women’ – and allegedly found that David had already set up a dating profile.
Their split led to her to check into a £8,000-a-week trauma treatment centre to focus on her mental health.
She has now admitted she was left having to ‘join the dots’ when it came to his affair.
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.’
The Daily Mail previously revealed that the American actor was romantically involved with a younger costume designer, whom the Mail has chosen not to name.
‘David cheated on Lily,’ an associate told the newspaper. ‘They met on a movie they did together.’ The source, who witnessed their interactions on set, said: ‘They weren’t very secretive about their relationship.’
So serious did the romance become that Harbour paid for the woman to travel more than 400 miles to visit him while he was working on his hit Netflix TV series last year.
‘David flew her to Atlanta while he shot Stranger Things to keep him company,’ the associate said.
Lily’s London friends said she had suspected that her husband was interested in other women.
A source previously revealed: ‘Lily is of the belief that he has been open to meeting new people for some time now, though she only found out at the end of the summer. He has been living in Atlanta for a year for filming.’
