Lily Allen says having children 'totally ruined' her career as a popstar

Lily Allen shocked fans and women with a recent statement that her children ruined her career. Read on to find out why she said it and what it really means...

Back in 2006, Lily Allen broke onto the scene with her first single 'Smile', and her album 'Alright, Still' soared to Triple Platinum status in the UK.

Although Allen continues to make music, she hasn't matched her initial success. And, well, it seems much of the blame from that goes toward her family, who she loves very much!

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Allen and her ex-husband Sam Cooper share two daughters, born in 2011 and 2013.

On the Radio Times podcast, when asked if she had to rethink her career strategy after having children, Allen didn't mince her words: “I never really have a strategy when it comes to career, but yes, my children ruined my career.”

“I mean I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop stardom, totally ruined it,” Allen said between laughs in March 2024 on the podcast.

Allen understands the choice some people make to prioritize their careers, acknowledging that it's completely within their right to do so. “It really annoys me when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t,” the singer said. “Some people choose their career over their children and that’s their prerogative.”

Lily Allen's own childhood was anything but rosy. Her parents were in the entertainment industry, but were absent, according to her 2018 autobiography. They both struggled with serious substance abuse.

In 'My Thoughts Exactly', she describes coming home from school to find her mother amidst a sea of empty pill bottles and vodka flasks. She also describes how her dad had a cocaine-related heart attack, but survived to keep partying in the following days.

Photo: Instagram, lilyallen

According to the Guardian, Lily Allen had always fantastized about doing things differently with her own children. “I feel like that really left some nasty scars that I’m not willing to repeat [on my children],” Allen said on the podcast. “I chose stepping back and concentrating on them, and I’m glad that I have done that because I think they’re pretty well-rounded people.”

But she was not a saint. In her earlier years, she was expelled from several schools and had substance use problems of her own. "I was pretty brazen with all my behaviour. I just didn’t care," she told the Guardian in 2018.

In an interview with Sunday World, Allen said that she has repressed most of her childhood memories.

In an interview with Glamour, she described how important sobriety has been in this stage of her life. “I actually don’t even know if I’d be alive if I’m honest if I hadn’t got sober,” she said . “Sobriety has just changed my life immeasurably... I don’t think that my kids would be thriving in the way that they are. I don’t think that I’d have gone into finding acting and how much I enjoy that. I definitely wouldn’t be getting as much sleep."

Starting a family wasn’t easy for Lily Allen: In 2008, she and then-partner, singer Ed Simons, were expecting a child, but tragically, she suffered a miscarriage. The emotional toll required Allen to seek treatment, and the relationship with Simons didn't survive the loss.

Allen also experienced a stillbirth with Sam Cooper before having their two daughters, losing a child in the sixth month of pregnancy when she was with her (then) husband Sam Cooper. "It was horrendous and something I would not wish on my worst enemy," she told the Sun in 2014. "I held my child and it was really horrific and painful—one of the hardest things that can happen to a person."

But happily, she had two rainbow babies with Cooper in the following years. However, the couple divorced in 2018. Then, in 2020, she was married for the second time, to actor David Harbour.

She now lives in New York with her kids and her husband, who you may know as an actor from the show 'Stranger Things.' And as she told Glamour UK, she's not done with music yet. "I’m not saying that I’m working on an album, because I’m definitely not, but I’m getting back into the idea of trying to find a space where some music will reveal itself.”

Now 38, Allen mentioned last year in The Times that she enjoys living in the USA where she leads a somewhat of a solitary life. She's also been doing some more acting in both the theater and on screen, most recently starring in the comedy-drama 'Dreamland' for Sky Max in 2023.

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