Lily Allen has admitted she ‘had kids for all the wrong reasons’ in a heartbreaking attempt to find ‘unconditional love.’
The singer, 39, shares daughters Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper and candidly revealed how she hoped pregnancy would help her pause her ‘high speed’ career and fix a love which she ‘hadn’t felt since being a child.’
Her father is actor Keith Allen, 70, who walked out on her mother Alison Owen, 63, when Lily was four years old, she has been open about their fractious relationship.
Speaking on her podcast Miss Me? on BBC Sounds, Lily and her friend Miquita Oliver, candidly discussed how her desire for children came from a place of searching for a love she hadn’t felt herself.
‘I think I had children for all the wrong reasons really because I was yearning for unconditional love, which I haven’t felt in my life since I was a child,’ she said.
Lily added: ‘Also my career was at such a high speed, you know high pressure and I’m a people pleaser and I felt like very overwhelmed by what was happening.
‘I just didn’t get much respite and I felt like the one way to stop people hassling me, it’s not about me its about this other person that’s inside me.
‘They did leave me alone, but I don’t think I really understood what I got myself into.’
After years spent as one of London’s most notorious party girls, she moved to the country and had children in 2011.
Back in March, Lily said her two daughters ‘totally ruined’ her pop career because she chose to prioritise them instead of work – insisting, ‘You can’t have it all’.
The singer-turned-actress said she believes women have to decide whether to put their children or their career first, saying she chose the former.
‘My children ruined my career. I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop-stardom, they totally ruined it,’ she told the Radio Times Podcast.
‘I get really annoyed when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t.’
