Lily Allen is in a “really great” place in her life.
Lily Allen
The ‘Smile’ hitmaker has been open in the past about her battle with substance abuse, but after getting sober, Lily has now said she’s enjoying her life again, and is continuing to “break the cycle” of addiction.
Lily is now spending more time with her children – daughters Marnie, eight, and Ethel, nine, whom she has with her ex-husband Sam Cooper – than ever before, and says she has a “great relationship” with them now, after previously feeling “so guilty” for “neglecting” them during her health battle.
She said: "It's really great. [I'm] in the process of, breaking that cycle, you know? I felt so guilty about neglecting my kids in those early years of their life and having to go off on tour and misbehave in the way that I was. I really have, like, a great relationship with my kids now. I'm there to pick them up at the school gates whenever I can be, and I'm off dropping them off in the morning, and I'll make them dinner, and they'll come to me when they've got problems, and that's, like, golden to me."
Lily is also in a happy and healthy relationship with her husband David Harbour, whom she wed in September.
She added: "He's sober, has been sober for 20 years now. We're thinking about what we're going to do with the rest of our lives."
The ‘Not Fair’ singer, 35, believes her battle with addiction stemmed from wanting “attention” from her parents, as she turned to addictive substances when she didn’t get the praise she was looking for.
She explained: "When I think of my childhood, I don't see my mom and dad in it. Like, they weren't really around a lot. It was more about my friends.
"All I wanted was affirmation and praise and I didn't even really get it then. I got it from strangers, but I didn't really get it from the people I wanted it from. In fact, I was kind of met with a bit of resentment from those people. Taking responsibility for my own actions, you know, I definitely like buried my head in drugs and alcohol, but I was really sad."
And when she found fame as a singer, Lily was met with more criticism from the public, and so fell deeper into her addiction to cope.
Speaking to ‘The Recovery’ podcast, she said: "I would spend my days, like, beating myself up and believing all of this stuff that was being written about me, and then I would, like, spend my nights proving it wrong in a hotel room with five other addicts."
Tagged in Lily Allen