Lily Allen has moved into a new flat in London with her daughters amid rumours that she has separated from her husband, Stranger Things star David Harbour.
Speaking in an episode of her podcast Miss Me?, in which the “Smile” singer discussed the topic of gentrification with her co-host Miquita Oliver, Allen revealed she has bought and moved into a new flat in London.
The “Not Fair” singer said the flat is an ex-council property in a building that has a mixture of social and privately-owned homes, but she hoped she wasn’t contributing to gentrification because she grew up in the local area.
“This flat that I’ve bought, is in a social housing building, I have kind of given myself a ‘get out’ clause because it is slap bang in the area which I grew up in, so I don’t feel like I am coming from outside and coming into the area and gentrifying it,” she explained.
Allen added that she has wanted to live in the building for a long time – so when a property appeared on the market, she took it.
“I have wanted to live in this building since I was a baby, it’s been a dream of mine forever and finally a flat became available in here and I was in a position to buy it and I did. But I know people have got judgement around it.”
She reassured listeners that it was a privately owned flat before she purchased it, so she wasn’t contributing to the loss of social housing stock, saying: “It’s a privately owned flat, so I didn’t buy it from the council, I bought it off another private owner.”
She further defended buying the property, adding: “There’s no separate entrance for the privately owned people. Everyone really gets along. We smile and chat with each other in the lifts.”
The singer added that she and her two daughters were attending bingo in the nearby community centre that evening, but didn’t mention whether Harbour was also living with them at the property.
Allen shares her two daughters with her ex-husband Sam Cooper. She married Habour, 49, in 2020 a year after meeting on Raya, an exclusive dating app popular among celebrities.
The singer sparked split rumours after she filmed the podcast without her wedding ring as she spoke about spending Christmas “alone”. The Independent has contacted Allen and Harbour’s representatives for comment.
In January, the musician took a break from the podcast after she admitted she was “spiralling” and “really not in a good place”. She returned to the podcast and said she had been in a treatment centre for a few weeks, where she did “lots of group therapy and individual therapy”.
“I needed some time and space away from everything, and I did a lot of shadow work… lots of work about my inner child stuff,” she said.
Allen added that she was in a situation where she had to be her “strongest self” for her two daughters Ethel and Marnie.
“I felt like it was getting harder and harder for me to be able to show up for them in the way that they need me to,” she said. “It was a big decision to have to leave them for a few weeks to go and focus on myself but ultimately it was for them… that I can get us through this bit. I needed some help to be able to do that.”
