Why Lily is right to get it so wrong
Much like the BBC, Lily Allen is not particularly popular round here. She does a lot of crying in public – most famously over the British treatment of refugees, and this week because she didn’t win the Mercury Music Prize.
It is not the done thing to weep in front of TV cameras, especially not because you have missed out on a £25,000 cheque. But then that is the point of Allen, in many ways – she refuses to do the done thing. Whether it’s admitting to sleeping with women or hard drug use, Allen is fearless in the face of our judgment. She lives in the moment, saying the things that come into her head. I like that she is not afraid to contradict herself.
We all do this to a certain extent, but Allen admits it, happily retracting statements when she has been shown to be wrong. She is not embarrassed to exist just as she is; she doesn’t claim that her life is perfect. Nobody’s is. As she says in her new book, My Thoughts Exactly,
“when women share their stories, loudly and clearly and honestly, things begin to change – for the better”.
If only we lived in a world where more of us felt brave enough to share such a belief.