I’m kind of glad that Lily Allen has rejoined the music industry and is back to doing press, because it gives me a chance to judge her as a celebrity. And let’s face it, as a celebrity, Lily Allen has been an a—hole for a really long time. I lifted my harsh view of Lily for several years, while she was going through a really bad time in her personal life, when she had “retired” from the industry and she seemed to actively not want any attention. But that’s over. Now she’s back with new music (and racist music videos), and she’s back to trash-talking other artists (which is what she used to do before she “retired”), being a hypocrite (which is what she used to do before she “retired”) and being so smug and full of herself and her version of “keeping it real” (which… you get it).
I have the kind of fly-trap memory for celebrity shenanigans where I remember clearly what a drugged-out, liquor-soaked, trash-talking mess Lily used to be. And guess what? Lily covers the new issue of Esquire UK and she’s trash-talking and painting her drunk, drugged-out mess years as some kind of “authenticity” that today’s pop stars are sorely lacking. Some highlights from the Esquire interview:
Things were more “authentic” in the 1990s: “I feel like when I was growing up and dreaming of being a pop star, it was the days of Britpop when things felt authentic and anarchic, and people were taking drugs and having a lot of fun and having sex with each other and it wasn’t fake, it was real. So excuse me if I found it a bit disappointing when I arrived and it was a bunch of sterile f**king botoxed idiots that stank of desperation.”
Her re-entry into music: “I feel very lucky. I couldn’t ask for much more really. And actually I’m not really asking for much more. I’m not trying to take over the world here. I don’t want to be Rihanna. I want to sell some records, sell some tickets to my shows and live my life.”
Why she retired: “I was at the end of my tether. I’d had enough of people constantly hacking at me. And I think once you’re exhausted physically and mentally, it does get you down.”
She felt “persecuted” by her celebrity friends: “I thought the people in that showbiz circle were my friends. But almost the second I got pregnant and I wasn’t able to go out and party, they were suddenly quite nasty. There’s a way that those people survive, and it’s not by being nice. The way they make themselves feel powerful is to ostracize other people. I feel blessed to be able to recognise that but at the same time it can still feel pretty s**t what you walk into a room full of people and you can feel the eyes looking at you and people laughing. It’s hard for me because I will eternally feel like that little bullied girl at school, because that’s what I was.”
[From The Daily Mail and Esquire]
LOL, I’m sorry, but this is one of the funniest and least self-aware interviews I’ve ever read? Lily Allen is the same fool who, coked out of her mind and drunk as hell, heckled Elton John at an awards show. This is the same person complaining about how SHE was mistreated. She’s the same fool who gave Miley-esque interviews about how cocaine is super-amazing and how cokeheads are just fine and now Lily is complaining about being “bullied” by all of her celebrity friends because she didn’t want to do drugs with them when she was pregnant. SERIOUSLY? They “bullied” you and you didn’t take that as a sign that you just hung out with drugged-out losers and enablers? And that’s why you quit the music business?! Hahahaha. But of course, when she was drugged out and banging every dude she could get her hands on, that was “authentic” and “real”. Not like the young pop stars who are drugged out and having lots of sex these days.
Cover photo courtesy of Esquire.
I just like to listen to her music and try to ignore everything else about her. Her music is good stuff.
I agree
She’s one of the rare pop musicians I actually listen to. And I can’t help but have a soft spot for her. She doesn’t seem so hypocritical to me.
I enjoy her music. I have a soft spot for her because of her heartbreaking loss. It’s good to see her happy and feisty as ever. She’s probably a sweet and loving mum.
Anyone care to elaborate on her loss? I’m not quite interested enough to research it.
A miscarriage and a stillbirth.
@mayamae
She lost a baby at 6 months gestation (which is infant loss, not miscarriage IMO) & split from the father soon thereafter
Bodhi, you are correct that the 6 months was a stillbirth. Even sadder is that she did have a miscarriage a few years before. And she split from that father as well. I got the feeling that she wanted to be a mom SO badly, and it just kept not happening. So I’m happy she’s in a better place now.
I like her music. It seems as though some celebrities featured on this site never catch a break for trying to turn over a new leaf or get their sh*t together. Once painted with the Asshat Brush, always painted with the Asshat Brush. Also enough of labeling everyone and everything “racist”. The only thing racist about that video is possibly the notion that white girls can’t dance.
So this. +10,000. Thank you!
if you’ve truly turned over a new leaf then it would make sense (at least as you’re giving comeback interviews) to acknowledge your past shenanigans and that the things you’re harping on others about now are things you’d give your past self shit for as well
pointing out why her ridiculous video was racist isn’t part of a desire to ‘label everything as racist.’ *rolls eyes* white feminism strikes again.
What is so great about her “music”? She is basically talking in a mockney accent throughout the track, anyone could *literally* do it.
I don’t see what’s wrong with this interview. She hung out with druggy bitchy famewhores and has now realised they weren’t truly her friends. You can’t bitch someone out for saying stuff while they were young, naive and immature. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t like her music.
Amen!
I’m so sick of these stupid poses! I hope 2014 brings and end to the duck pose, the little girl pose and all the other annoying stuff! Could care less about her music!
I’m so conflicted that I’m doing two posts.
Lily Allen is adorable. She’s made her mistakes, but she’s sober now and trying to make a comeback. Why you gotta pick on a cute white girl?
I can’t with Lilly Allen.
Once you’ve seen her Mileyesque twerk video, complete with slapping writhing black buttocks, you can’t unsee her racist sendup of a racist music video. Lilly’s hopelessly cringe inducing video is a massively meta self-unaware exercise in vapidity.
Judging from her latest antics, Allen certainly doesn’t seem to have changed or learned one iota, so much so that I wonder if she’s still using.
My coffee has not kicked in yet, and I read your two posts and thought: “Oh, God NO, Sloane has gone all Gollum on us!” and “Oh, SHIT!”
Then I reread your first post and was able to let out a sigh of relief. All is well in Bitchyland, and no, you have not gone off your rocker.
This is a good thing.
Happy New Year, Sloanita!
Sloane you crack me up!!! Double post was soo necessary and I agree with all of your sentiments!
I think she’s clever, bright, and adorable too! Saw her in London exiting Harvey Nichols ’08 and she was papped to the nth degree… She was incredibly gracious to both photogs and fans… Lovely woman.
Rihanna doesn’t want to be you,lily allen. Don’t come for her she’ll put you in your place. I hate when celebs trash talk each other,it’s lame. Just enjoy your life and don’t cry about bullying when stans come for you on social media for talking sh!t.
It sounded like she was complimenting her to me.
All those girls, Miley, Katy perry, Rihanna, are all manufactured, soulless mainstream poptart crap! Their whole existence is to sell records, you can’t compare them to someone like Lilly, she’s a real person, and she’s right, they are all robots.
I agree. And doesn’t she write her music?
Jade, boredbrit, and spooks:
1. Click on Kaiser’s highlighted phrase “(and racist music videos)”.
2. Scroll down the linked Jezebel story to see the tweet she sent black rapper Azealia Banks during their feud last year.
3. Lilly Allen tweeted her a racist photo of a blackface penis, complete with mini ‘fro and gold chain, (so don’t click through if you don’t want to see that!).
This sealed the deal for me. With that disturbing visual, Allen removed any shred of doubt from my mind that she’s a hipster racist. Do you still feel like this post is being unfair or too hard on Lily after looking at that garbage?
OMG. I clicked over, watched as much of the video as I could stand and saw the blackface penis. OMG.
This woman is a piece of work. The video is REVOLTING.
What a smug, crass, self-absorbed, racist, brat. I like how Jez puts it: ironic racism.
@ Jade. She might not be willing to sell her own sexuality to make a buck but she is more than happy to turn others into sex toy robots to sell records for her.
Bloody hell. I rescind my earlier comments. Thanks, Sloane Wyatt.
Thank you
Her writing her own music means nothing to me now.
THIS, all day, every day, SloaneWyatt. Poor widdle Lily feels bullied all the time, so she feels entitled to do and say anything to anyone, no matter how offensive and over-the-top. I used to like her music and think she was spunky, but she’s just a narcissistic hot mess.
I think Lily has the 1990s confused with the 1960s.
But I’m fascinated by the fake sex kids are getting up to today!
“people were taking drugs and having a lot of fun and having sex with each other and it wasn’t fake, it was real”
Yeah, I have to say, I was really confused by that remark. So the drugs and sex are fake now? Huh?
Allow me to weigh in on this weightiest of topics! All the sex I’ve had and all the drugs I did were completely fake! Fake, I tell you.
Thank God Lilly Allen cleared all that up for me! I was worried there for a moment that I may have enjoyed fantastic multiple sex partners and psychedelic drugs IRL. Whew! Close one.
Me too, the one night stands and oxy, fake! Just for the movies
“All the sex I’ve had and all the drugs I did were completely fake!’
That is almost VERBATIM what I have always tried to explain to my mom.
So is the blunt I’m toking on right now fake? *sniffs* Sure smells real! I am so confused.
If I remember rightly, Lili was a close pal of Lindsay L. Bloody hell is right! This tart needs to eff off.
I also wonder how she considers the 1990s, an era defined by New Labour and the Mockney, authentic.
She needs to pipe the fk down a bit. I’m tired of seeing all this “everyone else in this biz is fucked up EXCEPT FOR ME, everyone is a plastic but I’M REAL” schtick cause all that registered into my brain after reading that interview is “LOOK AT ME, I’M SO SPECIAL! LOOK AT ME!!!”.
+1
She is judgmental as all get out. Everybody learns and grows at different stages so she really needs to calm down. As a matter of fact, Lily still sounds like she has some growing up to do herself, especially when looking at her attempt at satire by objectifying black women’s bodies in her latest video.
I can’t stand her she’s a nasty Brit. Lily doesn’t even sing she speaks the lyrics and she sounds like a lazy, coked out wannabe rapper!
Oh, she does sing. You need to hear what she’s done to “Somewhere only we know”. It’s so very bad, and I can’t believe it was used in a major ad campaign. See if you can find the released version (not the ad version) and cringe as she struggles to hit the high notes. A lovely song but she’s really not done it justice.
Kind of agree with Kaiser’s assessment: oh, and the 90s had acts/groups as diverse as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins, Selena and Natalie Merchant, Tupac and Whitney (before her downhill slide); she can reference the 90s but I doubt her music will come close to the best music of the 90s.
Maybe she needs to get a “reality” show.
And heckling Sir Elton – really, even now he performs live 2 and 1/2 shows and no lip synching.
All these pop-tarts should take a deep breath and count to 1000 before randomly talking about Elton John, who’s been in the business since their parents were wearing diapers, has tons of amazing songs and doesn’t need auto-tune.
She has come back from retirement because she needs the money. Overrated, talentless, big mouth.
Let’s face it, most celebrities are uneducated morons and even those who are purportedly educated – like James Franco – bribe universities to pass them when they fail to attend classes.
She, unlike Rihanna, Britney or Katy Perry writes her own music and can actually sing. Like her or not, talentless she ain’t.
I thought Katy Perry wrote her own music? I know Britney wrote a couple songs, don’t know about Rihanna.
She can sing?! What the hell was she doing in her Christmas song, because that was NOT pleasant to listen to ?
Not that it’s a bad thing, but why does it matter if an artist writes their own songs or not? Plenty of legends built their careers on singing other people’s songs.
erihanna and Katy have strong, emotive voices and are talented. i think the songs they choose are worthless pop confection but they are talented. britney not so much. she is more of an entertainer. lily is a unique, special little snowflake of an a**hole.
Rihanna and Katy have strong voices? Really? Hahahahahhaha
To me, if an artist writes his own music, he just seems more sincere.
Writing one’s own music doesn’t make one a “better” musician, just a more well-rounded one.
Rihanna and Katy Do have strong voices. They can belt out any tune or hit any note they choose whether live or in the studio, with or without the microphone. Their songs are other crap but they still have good voices. And I still don’t see how that has to equal talent because you write or do not write your own songs. If If I have no vocal talent but I’m a great songwriter who cares? Los Angeles, New York and Nashville are full of people that fit this description. But if you think this argument makes Lily seem like a better or more serious vocalist, then by all means…
I’ve always hated her and her music. I’m not surprised she has such a poor attitude and sense of entitlement, her idiot father is the same.
I like her lyrics but yeah, she’s as entitled and annoying as her father.
What? Tim Allen is her father?
I don’t know about authenticity, but my friend and I were talking last night over 90s videos on TV… The new crop of artists at the time, excluding maybe Liz Phair, really didn’t emphasize their looks. Like Alanis Morisette: She managed to strip in the video for You Oughta Know, but it wasn’t sexualized, and if you weren’t paying attention, you’d miss it. Courtney Love wore babydoll dresses, but didn’t seem coquettish. It wasn’t that their attractiveness was never judged (Alanis was hottest woman of the year in Spin or something), it was just really underplayed. I can’t think of any time where I was like, oh, this is about their bodies. So… things changed, but I don’t think they got ‘faker’, maybe just more superficial.
Lily Allen is a nasty, annoying, hypocritical, gobby, entitled little cow with issues up the wazoo who worked her mummy (film producer Alison Owen ) and daddy’s (comedian/headcase Keith Allen) contacts to kickstart her career, and I hate her too, but she does make fun music and her video is NOT racist.
Uh, what do you think about the black face black penis? That’s not racist, AT ALL. Amiright?
As for me, I don t really care what she thinks or says.
Isn’t she basically parody-ing all the actual racist and sexist music videos that use back-up dancers and women that way?
I dunno. Maybe I’m missing something but I see “a message” about the music industry, not Lily Allen being racist.
You missed the black face black penis.
Was it a “black face” penis (like, was it painted?) or a black penis? Either way I don’t really get why she would tweet it. :/
I was just talking about my impression of the music video, not her twitter history.
Peanut, you’ll have to judge the photo for yourself, but it appears to be a black man’s penis with painted on old time demeaning ‘blackface’ make up. – http://jezebel.com/lily-allen-doesnt-get-to-decide-if-her-ne-video-has-a-1463811287Cheers
Allen tweeted the disgusting blackface penis to black rapper Azealia Bank as a horridly insulting dehumanizing way to caricature black women and men as animalistic and buffoonish. This was a truly nasty racist insult on many, many levels, showing Allen’s contempt for Ms. Bank’s race and facial features, while implying she is the stereotypical sexually insatiable black woman in need of ‘dick’.
Allen’s grossly racist tweet, coupled with her recent video appropriating the worst of Miley’s hypersexualizing black women’s bodies as some kind of carnal lustbots that exist for white women to play with, reveal her to be a Class A bigot. This is not a parody; this is a cynical cash grabbing repeat of Miley’s racist depiction of black women as lewdly wanton club rats who love to be fondled by white women. In both Miley’s and Lilly’s videos, black women aren’t even treated as people, but like soulless dark hussy blow up dolls.
Our history of black women’s bodies being literally sexual property, to today’s perpetuation of the stereotype of black women as sex toys for white women to play with, is repugnant. A historical context for white women’s fascination with black women’s buttocks is on display with the early 19th Century ‘Hottentot Venus’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXL23sGtjlM
Team Sloan forever
Its the attitude that a person projects, I think most of the time, that determines how people see and respond to the projecting individual. Give dirt, get back dirt. I think Lily Allen’s attitude is reflected in the interview.
The fact that she can’t let her music speak for itself and still has to garner press attention by bad mouthing people who won’t even address her irrelevant comments anymore screams volumes. Sooooo authentic.
Yeah, the Nineties were too real where drugs were concerned in the music world here in the States: Kurt Cobain (heroine addict who committed suicide), Malvoin, Bradley Nowell, and a few others. You’d think after what she’d been through she wouldn’t buy into this live hard and fast garbage, but approach everything with a survivor’s determination. After all, Pearl Jam is still going strong.
How old was she when Britpop was having its moments in the UK? All the memoirs I’ve read about Britpop (Cool Britannia, Bad Vibes by Luke Haines, etc) complained about the genre being so “manufactured”, well basically the same things Lilly complained at at her generation’s popstars. Unless she’s talking about Britpop circa the Auteurs, Pulp, Suede, St. Etienne, Divine Comedy.
I used to love her music in junior high, but the astonishing stupidity is transcending beyond to it now. Wasn’t she so proud of being a drunk and coke-head back then? So instead of admitting the problem is herself, she’s playing the classic blame game. Soooooo mature.
She’s a ninny. I like some of her music but she left a sour taste in my mouth when she came for Cheryl Cole (and was promptly betch-smacked back down).