Inside Lily Allen and David Harbour’s whirlwind marriage after cheating allegations

Lily Allen’s hugely personal West End Girl, a semi-autobiographical dive into the breakdown of her marriage with David Harbour, has exploded over the internet this weekend since she dropped it on Friday to rave reviews.

While the 40-year-old Smile hitmaker’s first album in seven years is musically brilliant, all her fans – and everyone else for that matter – still have their jaws on the floor at the characteristically blunt lyrics Lily used to call out her Stranger Things star ex.

She dropped West End Girl just weeks before the 50-year-old actor’s big moment as the fifth season of the supernatural series drops on Netflix next month, and fans are wondering how David might respond.

Lily told the Sunday Times in a recent interview that she has ‘artistic licence’ with some of the album, and while she doesn’t think she can say it’s all true, ‘there are definitely things I experienced within my relationship that have ended up on this album,’ she said.

Her seemingly candid confessions on the record, including accusing the US actor of cheating and gaslighting, have caused quite the stir, leading to lots of interest in the pair’s short-lived marriage.

How did Lily Allen and David Harbour meet?

Lily Allen and David Harbour met on celebrity dating app Raya, and they confirmed their romance in September 2019.

In an interview with GQ Hype, the actor talked about falling for Lily after meeting on the app.

‘I was in London alone, doing Black Widow, on this app, going on dates and stuff. And yeah, I started texting with her,’ the actor recalled.

‘She was in Italy at the time – we got together, went on a date at the Wolseley [a restaurant in Mayfair], and it was, you know, she’s f***ing unbelievable,’ he continued.

He added that while Lily said it was love at first sight, he could pinpoint the moment he knew she was the one on their third date.

‘I remember the exact moment. It was our third date,’ he said. ‘I was just in this phase, where I was like, I’m just going to be brutally honest about everything, because why lie?

‘And I told her something about my life, about my beliefs… It would take a really extraordinary person to be accepting of the things that I said. And I remember thinking: Wow, that’s somebody I want to be around.’

Inside David Harbour and Lily Allen’s wedding

Lily and David got married in 2020 in Las Vegas, where they were officiated by an Elvis Presley impersonator and they celebrated with a meal of In-N-Out burgers.

‘In a wedding officiated by the king himself, the people’s princess wed her devoted, low born, but kind credit card holder in a beautiful ceremony lit by the ashen skies courtesy of a burning state miles away in the midst of a global pandemic,’ Harbour captioned his post at the time.

Lily Allen and David Harbour’s life in New York together

Lily moved to the USA after their marriage, where they bought a New York home together, which was featured on an episode of Architectural Digest.

The couple lived there with Lily’s two children Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 12, who she welcomed in her first marriage to builder and decorator Sam Cooper.

In West End Girl, Lily appeared to reveal that they were in some version of an open relationship, but accused David of pushing the boundaries of this by cheating on her, making demands and then blaming her.

‘We had an arrangement/ Be discreet and don’t be blatant/ It had to be with strangers,’ she sings, before describing her discovery of a woman who she refers to as Madeline.

Designed by Billy Cotton, Lily sang on her titular album song that she wouldn’t have been able to afford their brownstone house alone.

‘I could never afford this / You were pushing it forward / Made me feel a bit awkward,’ she sang.

In the couple’s interview with AD, Lily described their French-inspired home as ‘weird and wonderful’.

To which Harbour said, ‘Lily is someone who lives with color in a deeper way than most. Her taste is bold, silly, fun, eccentric—it’s exciting. She has such a presence and star quality, you just can’t picture her living somewhere boring and conventional.’

David talked highly of Lily after their wedding, telling People: ‘I married a beautiful, incredible woman who I love.’

He continued: ‘I have never met someone who is so deeply kind as her. I’ve never felt so taken care of and cared for by another human being. She really is just a deeply kind individual and I love that about her.’

‘I’m so grateful that I’m not alone anymore, and that I have someone that I can tell everything to and who can tell me everything,’ Harbour told People about Lily in 2021.

‘We can share this experience of walking through life together. I’m always so overcome with gratitude for that because I’ve been alone for most of my life.’

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the British singer said she wanted to have kids with David following their wedding.

‘I think so. Especially now Marnie’s getting so big,’ Lily answered when asked about expanding her family, which she said would be something she’d like to explore in a few years.

‘I’m in a really good place. I don’t know if I’d mess with my hormones, at this particular point,’ she said.

However, in the album Lily sings about her husband considering getting a vasectomy, as she wonders whether he’d got a woman pregnant that’s not her.

She also sings in Pussy Palace that she ‘found a shoebox full of handwritten letters /From brokenhearted women wishing you could have been better’ in an apartment owned by David in New York, which she said was evidence of his ‘double life’.

Lily also sings about finding a bag full of ’sex toys, butt plugs, and lube inside’.

In the titular track, Lily described David’s ‘demeanour’ changing after she got a part in West End play, 2:22 A Ghost Story.

When did Lily Allen and David Harbour split?

Lily and David confirmed in February that they were divorcing.

A source told People: ‘Her marriage has been crumbling and they have split.’

Reflecting on the split, David told GQ he was putting his energies into his acting career.

David said: ‘It’s not that things ending aren’t hard, but it’s just that I’m choosing to make it a period of growth. And I feel like having the opportunity to be busy and work is really good. I’m learning how to swim in this, whatever it is. Learning how to float. Learning how to make it not about me.’

Meanwhile Lily, who has been sober since 2019, reflected in an interview with British Vogue that their split made her feel suicidal.

‘The feelings of despair that I was experiencing were so strong,’ she said in the interview. ‘The last time that I felt anything like that, drugs and alcohol were my way out, so it was excruciating to sit with those [feelings] and not to use them.’

Who is Madeline?

In a song called Madeline, Lily reads out what appears to be a voicenote from the woman, in which she confirms her relationship with David has only ever been about sex, and nothing more.

However, Lily sings: ‘I can’t trust anything that comes out of your mouth
I’m not convinced that he didn’t f**k you in our house.’

Madeline is merely a pseudonym, but a costume designer called Natalie Tippett has stepped forward as the woman behind the moniker.

Rolling her eyes when asked by the Daily Mail whether she had heard Lily’s new music, she responded: ‘Of course I’ve heard the song.’

Keen not to put anyone on blast, she added: ‘But I have a family and things to protect.

‘I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and I understand this is going on.

‘It’s a little bit scary for me.’

It’s alleged that Natalie and David met in the States during shooting for Netflix movie We Have A Ghost in 2021, having struck up an illicit affair shortly after.

Once filming had concluded, it’s claimed that David and Natalie continued their secret relationship at his home in Georgia, behind Lily’s back.

However, The Mail reports that their actions were exposed when Lily noticed a text message on her then-husband’s phone.

She sings about this alleged discovery on her new tune Tennis, with lyrics including: ‘So I read your text, and now I regret it’ and ‘If it was just sex, I wouldn’t be jealous. You won’t play with me, and who’s Madeline?’

Has David Harbour said anything?

So far, David Harbour has not responded to Lily’s West End Girl album, but he has disabled Instagram comments on his social media.

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