Lily: I was abused by music executive ... but my record label hushed it up
LILY Allen has revealed she was sexually abused by a professional in the music industry and claimed no one helped her when she reported it.
The singer, 33, said she did not feel comfortable speaking about the experience and suggested it was hushed up by her record label.
‘I’ve had things happen that I would feel uncomfortable talking about because they’re linked with lots of people I work with,’ she said in a newspaper interview. ‘People who are in control of things that affect me.’
Asked if she was speaking talking about sexual abuse, she replied: ‘ Yeah. Uh huh. But like Rose McGowan [ Harvey Weinstein accuser], I reported it to people around me – women – and no one did anything.
‘My record label have a list of priority acts, pretty much all of which have a link to the person who did something to me.
‘I know what will happen. They’ll say, “Let’s try and get rid of Lily because this person is worth more to us because he makes us lots of money”.’
The mother-of-two said she would never escape the person who abused her due to the lengthy contracts within the industry.
She said: ‘In film and TV, you can choose not to work with any of those people again. You can move country, move out of London to LA. You can’t do that in music.
‘It’s the same bunch of people on both sides of the Atlantic and it’s inescapable because it’s 15-yearlong contracts.’
In an interview with the i newspaper, the singer also spoke about how she combined drugs and alcohol in her early days. She said: ‘I’d always been a drug taker back in the day. I would drink, but it was more just an accessory to drugs. I suddenly realised I wasn’t really taking drugs any more, but I was drinking a bottle of vodka to myself every day.’
Asked if she started in the morning, she said: ‘Yep.’
Miss Allen said no one stepped in to help her with her drinking and drug- taking, adding: ‘ The thing is, when you call time on something, everyone goes home and there’s no money. So it’s not
‘Drinking a bottle of vodka every day’
really in anyone’s interest to say, “This has got to stop, you need to go home”.’
The star was accused last month of glamorising drug use after joking on social media about passing out at a party after taking ketamine.
Responding to a Twitter discussion about ‘the best reason you’ve been kicked out of an event’, she told her 5.9million Twitter followers: ‘Someone gave me a line of what I assumed to be cocaine at the Glamour Awards once.
‘But it turned out to be ketamine. I was thrown out (passed out over some railings) of the Glamour Awards in a K hole.’
The phrase ‘K hole’ refers to the effects of ketamine, a Class B drug, which can leave users unable to move, suffering from hallucinations and feeling disconnected from physical sensations.