Lily Allen: My agony over sex abuse ordeal at the hands of music boss
LILY allen has told of her torment after a music industry executive sexually abused her following a party.
the mother-of-two said she had been drinking when she fell asleep in his hotel room.
She was then woken by him pressing his ‘naked body’ against her back, the singer claims.
Following the alleged assault, the 33-year-old says she continued working with the unnamed man because she was afraid of being branded ‘difficult’. She was also warned there were others like him in the industry.
She added that she initially blamed herself for the assault.
miss allen has previously discussed in more general terms an incident of abuse by a powerful industry figure several years ago. however she has given more details in her upcoming autobiography.
in my thoughts exactly, miss allen describes the alleged attack happening in the early hours of the morning.
She had been taken to the man’s hotel room, where she had fallen asleep.
She writes: ‘i woke up at 5am because i could feel someone next to me pressing their naked body against my back. i was naked, too.’
miss allen then tells how the executive touched her inappropriately, tried to have sex with her and slapped her bottom ‘as if i were a stripper in a club’.
She says: ‘i moved away as quickly as possible and jumped out of the bed, full of alarm... i found my clothes quickly... and ran out of his room and into my own.’
the singer – who split from her businessman husband Sam Cooper in 2016 – has revealed that she wanted to name the executive in her book. however she decided not to after legal advice from her publisher.
She also expressed frustration that she did not confront or report the man’s behaviour, and carried on working with him. She explained that she stayed silent because he had more power and money than her – and she feared being labelled ‘hysterical’ and a ‘difficult woman’.
‘i expected him not to take advantage of my weakness,’ she writes in the book. ‘i felt betrayed. i felt shame. i felt anger. i felt confused.’
miss allen said she did not report the attack because she saw no point and feared she would be seen as unreliable. ‘if things went down, i told myself, he’d win,’ she said.
the pop star, who is the
‘I felt betrayed and I felt shame’
daughter of actor Keith allen, said at the time she thought the incident was below the threshold for it to be a crime.
She added: ‘What was the crime? record industry executive didn’t rape me. Was i supposed to report someone trying it on?’ miss allen said she was shocked by the encounter and felt ‘ betrayed’, but initially blamed herself as she had been drinking at the party.
even though she never formally reported the assault, the singer claimed she signed an affidavit detailing the alleged attack.
the singer told the guardian she was later offered the chance to perform at a show ow promoted by BBC radio 1, but declined because one of the executive’s clients was also due to be there.
She said she felt she could not tell the station why she could not appear and claimed she was ‘punished’ as a result with no airplay for her 2017 single trigger bang.
the claims come after miss allen revealed she had encounters with escorts in 2014, months after the birth of her second daughter marnie.
She told her 874,000 instagram followers: ‘i slept with female escorts when i was on tour, cause i was lost and lonely and looking for something. i’m not proud, but i’m not ashamed. i don’t do it any more.’
She is understood to have met the women around the time she released her album Sheezus, and was also suffering from post-natal depression.
She has blamed her life in the spotlight for the breakdown of her five-year marriage in 2016.
in a recent interview, she said: ‘i lost my sense of self. i lost my identity. i was being a bad mum. i was being bad at my job. i’d wake up on a tour bus in the middle of Wisconsin and be so hungover. i cheated on my husband. all i wanted to do was be with my kids.’
miss allen has two children with her ex-husband, ethel, seven, and marnie, now five.