Lily Allen’s New Concert Has The Internet (Literally) Pulling Up Receipts of Her Controversies
Once again, singer-songwriter Lily Allen is in the spotlight… and it’s making people drag out figurative (and literal) receipts.
This week, a video of Allen performing onstage at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall went viral online. The show, which was Allen’s first live concert in seven years and the first stop on her West End Girl Tour, included her being wrapped in a long green piece of fabric while performing the song “4chanStan”. As the piece unfurls, writing on it begins to be revealed: receipts for objects that her ex-husband, Stranger Things and Thunderbolts* star David Harbour, allegedly bought for other women. The costume references lines in “4chanStan”, where Allen discovers a Bergdorf’s receipt in Harbour’s bedside drawer, singing: “You bought her a handbag / It wasn’t cheap / I was in London / Probably asleep.”
The clip of the performance kicked up the conversation surrounding Allen’s West End Girl album, which was released late last year and recounts the dissolution of her and Harbour’s relationship. The pair were married for four years before separating in February of 2025, with Allen blaming the separation on Harbour being a “sex addict” who “went astray” by violating the terms of their open marriage.
Amid the jokes about the receipt dress (and whether or not Harbour purchased items at CVS, given how long the garment is), some have reacted to the video by scrutinizing Allen herself. Ever since West End Girl was first released and the lyrics were dissected, some have called Allen’s reaction to Harbour’s alleged infidelity hypocritical, given her own admissions about her previous marriage. From 2011 through 2018, Allen was married to builder and decorator Sam Cooper, who is the father of her two children. Allen admitted to sleeping with “female escorts” while married to Cooper, writing on Instagram in 2018: “I’m not proud, but I’m not ashamed. I don’t do it anymore.” As she told The Jonathan Ross Show that same year, “because it was a woman I felt like it wasn’t cheating. I was bonkers.”
Allen has since changed her outlook on that ordeal, telling Observer UK in an interview in December of 2024 that: “Having done things that were not very nice in my first marriage, I have a better idea now of the pain I may have inflicted. I’ve learned how horrible it is to be on the receiving end of that.”
The Controversies Continue…
Beyond allegations of cheating, Allen has also come under fire several times under the years for racist or otherwise offensive behavior. Just to name a few: in 2013, amid an online beef with rapper Azealia Banks, Allen tweeted a photo of male genitalia in blackface and cartoonish makeup. That same year, she released the music video for her song “Hard Out Here”, and was criticized for objectifying and culturally appropriating black culture. A year later, in 2014, she attended Kate Hudson’s Halloween party dressed as a gynecologist named “Dr. Luke”: an apparent reference to the music producer, who Kesha had just accused of sexual assault.
Allen also revealed in her 2018 memoir My Thoughts Exactly that she had kissed actress Zoë Kravitz, whose band Lolawolf was the opening act for the US leg of her Sheezus tour. Kravitz addressed Allen’s comments during a 2018 appearance on Watch What Happens Live! and offered a different version of events, arguing: “If by kissing she means ‘attacking’, then yes, she kissed me… She attacked me.”
Allen came under fire again in 2024, during an episode of the Miss Me? podcast that she co-hosts with Miquita Oliver, after criticizing Beyonce’s cover of “Jolene” on her album Cowboy Carter and suggesting that she’s gotten plastic surgery. That same year, she was accused of being “anti-working class” after she tweeted an AI-generated photo in response to England losing to Spain in the Euro 2024 final.
(featured image: JB Lacroix/FilmMagic)
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