Lily Allen admits 'I love my children but they ruined my career'

12 March 2024 , 08:37

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Lily Allen shares her two daughters with her ex husband (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Lily Allen has insisted "you can't have it all" as her two children "totally ruined" her pop career.

The singer, who shot to fame with her huge hits including Smile and The Fear, shares daughters Ethel, 12, and Marnie, 11, with ex-husband Sam Cooper. However, she has now admitted her daughters have cost her the career she'd worked for. Lily chose to prioritise her children instead of work and has hit out at the decision many women feel forced to make.

She feels women have to decide if they want to put their career or children first. The singer-turned-actress confessed: "My children ruined my career. I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop-stardom, they totally ruined it. I get really annoyed when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t."

"Some people choose their career over their children and that’s their prerogative, but my parents were quite absent when I was a kid," Lily told the Radio Times Podcast. "I feel like it left some nasty scars that I’m not willing to repeat on mine." Lily's dad Keith Allen, 70, walked out on her film producer mum Alison Owen, 63, when she was four-years-old.

Lily now lives with her two daughters and husband David in New York (lilyallen/Instagram)

The singer split with builder and decorator husband Sam in 2015 and divorced in 2018. She is now married to Stranger Things star David Harbour after they began dating in 2019. They tied the knot in a Las Vegas ceremony in 2020 and live together in New York with Ethel and Marnie.

Inside Lily Allen and David Harbour's 'weird' US home they call 'clown house'

Last year, the couple sparked concern for their marriage following reports that Lily and David had 'barely been together' over the past several months. Lily's extremely busy schedule saw her spend the summer starring in London's West End production of The Pillowman, while David remained at home in New York. David appeared to shut down rumours of any marriage crisis, saying they were doing “so great”.

Lily previously explained that she met David without even knowing that he was an actor in a major Netflix series. She said on the Jonathan Ross show: "It was the first time I'd been on this dating app. I was scrolling through and landed on David's profile and pressed accept. I didn't know who he was. I thought he was just like a sexy policeman from a reality TV show because he was wearing a policeman's uniform. It was a still from Stranger Things. I'd never seen Stranger Things.

"I don't even know what I was looking for. It was just something to do on holiday, swiping, it's a bit of fun. When I met him I didn’t think it was going to go anywhere. He was here filming Black Widow. He was only going to be here for a couple of months. And then it did [go somewhere]."

Mia O'Hare