Lily Allen is sending a message to her fans after dropping her album, West End Girl.
“Thank you for all the love on West End Girl 🤍,” Allen, 40, wrote via Instagram on Sunday, October 26, alongside a series of photos featuring the singer celebrating the album.
Allen confirmed to Vogue on Monday, October 20, that West End Girl is “inspired by what went on in the relationship” with her estranged husband, David Harbour. “That’s not to say that it’s all gospel,” she added. (The pair separated in 2024 after four years of marriage.)
Since the release of West End Girl — her first album in seven years — Allen has detailed her lyrical inspiration.
“Intimacy is inherently messy. 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,” Allen told The Times of London in a Saturday, October 25, profile. “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.”
In West End Girl, Allen insinuates that her partner — whom fans are presuming is the Stranger Things actor, 50 — was unfaithful during their marriage. (Harbor has not addressed the claims. His rep did not respond to Us Weekly’s request for comment.)
“So I read your text, and now I regret it / I can’t get my head round how you’ve been playing tennis,” Allen sings in the “Tennis” chorus. “If it was just sex, I wouldn’t be jealous / You won’t play with me and who’s Madeline?”
In a track named after Madeline, Allen details confronting the woman about the alleged infidelity.
Lily Allen pulls no punches on her new album, West End Girl. The 14-track record, which was released Friday, October 24, chronicles the breakdown of Allen’s four-year marriage to David Harbour and heavily insinuates that the Stranger Things star, 50, cheated on the singer, 40, prior to their 2024 separation. Allen opens the album with […]
“I know none of this is your fault / Messaging you feels kind of assaultive,” she sings. “Saw your text, that’s how I found out / Tell me the truth and his motives.”
Allen, for her part, revealed to The Times that Madeline is a “fictional character” and a construct of multiple people, rather than a representation of one specific person.
“I just feel we are living in really interesting times — in terms of how we define intimacy and monogamy, people being disposable or not,” she said. “The way we are being intimate with each other is changing as humans. Lots of young women are not finding the idea of marriage or even a long-term relationship that attractive any more.”
Allen continued, “I don’t know [that] it’s necessarily bad. Lots of people from my parents’ generation stayed together forever and were miserable. You didn’t have endless choice so you may have worked at something harder. But now you don’t have to.”
One of David Harbour’s former partners is seemingly offering her support to Lily Allen after the release of the pop star’s new breakup album, West End Girl. “West End Girl 24.10.25,” Allen recently captioned a series of promotional images onto her Instagram. Alison Sudol, who dated 50-year-old Harbour before his marriage to 40-year-old Allen, celebrated […]
Harbour, for his part, has relayed that he plans to remain tight-lipped about his relationship with Allen. In April, the actor told GQ, “I’m protective of the people and the reality of my life. There’s no use in that form of engaging [with rumors] because it’s all based on hysterical hyperbole.”
Allen was previously in a relationship with Sam Cooper, whom she wed in 2011. The exes split in 2018 after welcoming daughters Ethel, now 13, and Marnie, now 12.
West End Girl is out now.