What we know about ‘West End Girl,’ Lily Allen’s intimate and autofictional new breakup album

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After a seven-year break, Lily Allen has released a new album that’s deeply personal, honest, and based on her own life experiences.

Lily Allen recently released a 14-song album called “West End Girl” detailing her breakup with David Harbour. The album honestly explores the complexities of their failed relationship, including questions of trust, the use of dating apps, and the feeling that the split was unavoidable.

Lily Allen’s new album starts with her move to New York, which happened after a busy December where she wrote the songs in just 10 days. She moved to the East Coast in 2020 with her two daughters and her then-husband, following their quick wedding in Las Vegas. This came after her divorce from Sam Cooper, which she finalized in 2019, just as she began dating David Harbour. She shares her children with Sam Cooper.

The first song on “West End Girl” details an offer Lily Allen received to star in a London stage production. She later made her theatrical debut in 2021 with the play “2:22 — A Ghost Story.” Following this, her relationship with her partner became increasingly strained and distant. The song’s final moments feature Allen’s side of a phone conversation where her partner appears to be suggesting an open relationship.

Throughout the song’s changing rhythms, Allen openly discusses being cheated on, the challenges of an open relationship, and even names a pseudonym for her partner’s mistress in the track “Madeline.” She doesn’t hold back on specifics, detailing discoveries like boxes of sex toys and love letters from other women, and even directly calls her partner a “sex addict” in the song “P— Palace.”

Honestly, listening to the album, it’s pretty clear their relationship is completely broken. They actually announced they were separating back in February after being married for four years. And since the album came out last Friday, everyone’s been raving about Lily Allen getting back into music. She’s also been careful to point out to the press that it’s not a completely factual account of everything that happened.

Speaking with The Times newspaper, she admitted that while her new album isn’t a completely accurate account of her life, it’s definitely inspired by real experiences from her relationship. She explained that she took some creative liberties with the storytelling.

In interviews with Perfect Magazine and British Vogue, she described the album as a form of ‘autofiction,’ where a version of herself—an ‘alter ego’—is the voice behind the songs. While the album draws heavily from her personal relationship, she emphasized that it isn’t a completely factual retelling of events.

Harbour hasn’t publicly confirmed his relationship and has been keeping a low profile, even turning off comments on his Instagram account.

He told GQ magazine in April that responding to tabloid news isn’t worthwhile, as it relies on exaggerated and sensational claims.

David Harbour, who plays police chief Jim Hopper, will return in the final season of Netflix’s popular show, ‘Stranger Things,’ on November 27th.

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2025-10-28 01:01