‘But she cheated too!’: These boring takes on Lily Allen’s new album are missing the point

Lily Allen made a bold return to music last week with West End Girl, her first album in seven years. Reactions on social media have been mostly positive, but a weird group of people have been pulling apart everything Lily has ever done to discredit the album, and honestly, I’m tired of this take.

via instagram

West End Girl seems to tell the story of David Harbour and Lily Allen’s messy divorce, where she sings about his alleged cheating while they were in an open relationship. The lyrics are absolutely brutal and tell the story of the range of emotions she felt across the four-year marriage.

Most people are showing lots of support for Lily’s album, making TikToks to their favourite songs and trying to connect the dots on who the songs lyrics are about. But a worrying number of people are saying it’s hypocritical for her to make this album.

“Lily Allen is not a good person,” one person on TikTok said. “She actually hooked up with the lead singer of Oasis. She hooked up with him while he was married, and it turned into this whole affair. When she was married to her second husband, she [cheated].”

@coolgalag

a deep dive into Lily Allen and her lore #lilyallen #davidharbour #explained #celebritynews #celebritygossip

♬ original sound – angie is cool !!

This video has over 20k likes and there’s many more like it, defending David and calling what happened to Lily “karma”. But this take is so missing the point.

Most Read

Everything we know about Paul, the father of Megan Sparkle’s baby after Love Is Blind

It’s been changed, so here’s the schedule for the Celebrity Traitors’ final episodes

MAFS UK 2025 couple make it to end of the show but have since split after shock revelation

It’s boring to only expect perfect people to make music. Lily is a flawed human and has done lots of things I don’t agree with, things she should definitely be half accountable for. But saying she shouldn’t be allowed to point fingers because she allegedly cheated first entirely misses the point and isn’t the slay people think it is.

@venusasagirl03

abuse is abuse regardless of the victim. #venusasagirl03#alignment#westendgirl#lilyallen

♬ Pussy Palace – Lily Allen

The story of West End Girl doesn’t paint Lily as an innocent victim, and making music inspired by your relationship experiences isn’t attention-seeking. As an artist, she has every right to make music based on feelings that dominated her life. Lily has talked about how dark this period was for her, and now she’s made it out the other side with a banger of an album.

Love it or hate it, West End girl has every right to exist – even if it’s not coming from the “perfect victim”.

For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.

Featured image via Instagram