Lily Allen Misses 'Comfort' And 'Stability' Of Marriage As She Laments The 'Humiliation' Of Dating In Her 40s

Lily Allen is getting raw and honest about being thrown back into the dating pool following her split from David Harbour. 

The 40-year-old singer admitted that she misses being in a relationship, noting that dating at her age is “much harder” than dating at a younger age. 

Allen got married to Harbour in 2020. However, the two called it quits earlier this year after four years of marriage.

Allen recently opened up about her new album, which addresses her broken marriage, in an interview

The Brit Award winner shared that she wrote “West End Girl” while feeling pain because she has “deep-rooted issues” with feeling rejected and abandoned. She then reflected on her failed relationship with Harbour and acknowledged that it is challenging not to have her own person anymore. 

“Two people who were once together are not together. And that’s really sad. It’s hard. It’s hard for me to not have my person, you know?” she said to Perfect Magazine.

“And I am quite a codependent person. And I find it difficult to lean on the people who are available to me when I’m missing the comfort and stability of what is not available to me,” she added. 

Allen also admitted to feeling “exhausted” by the thought of trying to search for love again because she thought she had already found her happily ever after with Harbour. Speaking further on the dating scene, she said:

“The dating scene is much harder as a 40-year-old woman with two teenage children than it is for a 34-year-old woman. It’s bitterly disappointing.”

The artist also expressed frustrations at the dating scene because there’s also an “element of humiliation and shame” around dating at her age, as older women are often seen as undesirable. 

Still speaking on her love life, Allen revealed that she does not like the idea of being in an open marriage because of her attachment style. 

She noted that growing up in an “unstable household” made her crave stability and the feeling of being “centered” in her adult relationships. 

Allen pointed out that while younger people seem to “embrace” open marriage as a concept, she never considered being in one while getting married to Sam Cooper, her first husband, or Harbour, her second. 

Allen’s statements come months after she opened up about how her split from Harbour put her in a bad place mentally.  According to The Blast, the Grammy Award nominee said that she was finding it hard to be interested in anything. 

“I'm really not in a good place. I know I've been talking about it for months, but I've been spiraling and spiraling,” she said. 

Allen was also finding it difficult to concentrate on anything else except the pain she went through after the breakup. 

A few months after Allen spoke candidly about her split from Harbour, she spoke about a deeply painful experience she went through with an ex. 

Allen shared that the former partner, whom she left anonymous, often used cruel tactics to make her feel “self-conscious” and “sh-tty” about herself.

She added that it was a horrible “form of bullying and abuse that made her former partner feel more powerful than she was, per The Blast.  

Allen was married to Sam Cooper from 2011 to 2018, during which time they had two children together. Besides Harbour, she has also had a romantic history with several other high-profile figures, including Jay Jopling, Zayn Malik, and Meridian Dan. 

Besides the drama Allen faced in her love life, she also came under fire from fans for making some comments that didn’t sit right with the public. 

As reported by The Blast, Allen revealed that she would often get unplanned pregnancies and didn't care much for contraceptives. She further shared that there was a time a partner of hers paid for her abortion, which she found romantic. 

Fans slammed Allen for her statements, with one expressing shock that she was “laughing about having five abortions” and “treating contraception like a comedy sketch.”