Lily Allen has said she is “done being at the forefront” having never “managed to reconnect” after a series of traumatic events in her life.
The singer and actor revealed she has stepped back from music to embrace the “truthful” aspect of acting, although has not ruled out returning to it one day.
The singer opened up about the disconnect she feels in a candid new interview for Hunger magazine, in which she said: “People may think I’m retreating, but I’m done being at the forefront.”
She continued: “There was the stillbirth of my son, the stalking incident, the sexual assault — I felt myself leave my body when they happened, and I don’t think I’ve ever managed to reconnect.”
Lily was six months pregnant when she suffered a stillbirth in 2010.
Five years later, a man broke into her home she and her children were inside sleeping, leading to his conviction and detention under the Mental Health Act.
Lily also alleged in her 2018 memoir My Thoughts Exactly that a record industry figure assaulted her.
The Smile singer has also been open about her struggles with addiction in the past, having now been sober for four years.
Speaking of her daughters, she said: “Ethel was seven, Marnie was six when I got clean, and there’s a lot of shit that happened before that they’ll be really cross about.”
Discussing her shift from music to acting, Lily said she feels like she has “done everything I wanted to do” and “feels like she won” at being a musician.
“That being said, I can’t just be making packed lunches and ferrying kids to activities forever,” she said.
“I’ll do it for a few months and then I’ll have to stick my teeth into something — plus I think it’s healthy for them to see me doing something else.”
She continued: “I’m not saying I’m never gonna make music again. But with acting, especially theatre, something truthful happens in the moment, and when I write music, I’m thinking about how people are going to receive it.”
Read the full interview with Lily Allen and accompanying photoshoot by Rankin in Hunger magazine’s Timeslice issue, on sale May 24.