Actress-singer Lily Allen’s daughters remain in contact with “Stranger Things” star David Harbour, but she chooses to “stay out of” their relationship.
The 40-year-old singer and Harbour parted ways around a year ago. Despite this, she hasn’t interfered in the bond he shares with her children, Ethel, 14, and 12-year-old Marnie, from her first marriage to Sam Cooper. Allen mentioned in an interview with The Observer: “I stay out of it. They’ve both got phones. They all text each other.”
In her new album, West End Girl, Allen alludes to Harbour’s infidelity during their relationship. Reflecting on her second marriage, she acknowledges that these experiences have given her deeper insight into the “pain” that Cooper might have felt.
She commented: “(I’ve learned there are no) baddies and goodies in a marriage, but 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.”
Despite her previous short-lived unions, Allen is not completely dismissing the idea of marriage again. She stated: “I’d like to say I’d never do it again, but I do like it. Everything but the institution of it, you know? I like being chosen. I like jewellery. I like getting dressed up. I like celebrating. I don’t like talking about money. I like my independence. But I don’t like divorce.”
Allen has found the process of getting divorced to be “devastating,” leading to difficulties in trusting others. She expressed: “It’s just sort of devastating, really. It keeps you up at night and costs a huge amount of money and just goes on and on and on. And I hate feeling like I can’t trust anyone. But there’s something about dealing with an ex-partner and lawyers that creates an environment of feeling like you can’t trust anybody or anything.”
Over the years since her rise to fame, she feels she has transformed into a “different person.” Allen remarked: “We’re all massive walking contradictions, right? That’s what makes us human beings. You can think one thing one day, and then you grow, and you think something else – that’s life. I’m a different person than I was 20 years ago because I’ve lived 20 years of my life and I’ve had two children and two marriages and I’ve learned a lot.”