I actually don't even know if I'd be alive
if I hadn't got sober.
Hi, I'm Lilly Allen and this is my GLMAOUR Unfiltered.
Well, yes I have been a singer for, I don't know,
15, 20 years maybe.
And I don't think I'm very good at that anymore.
Yeah, I find it really hard writing
in this current political climate, maybe.
Still love performing
and I still love playing with stories, telling stories
and making sense of sort of humanity on some level,
and acting enables me to do that.
But, not have to take responsibility for the words
or the subject matter.
[chuckling]
I have a sister,
actually, I have quite few sisters,
but one on my mom's side who I sort of grew up with.
And yeah, you know, we lean on each other a lot.
You know, we've had our ups and downs
and have definitely had periods of time
where we haven't been so close,
but we're in a pretty good place now.
But I have different confidence
in sort of two different areas of my life,
professionally and at home.
And, I guess, you know,
my children thriving and being,
and both of them being happy makes me feel confident.
It makes me feel like I'm doing my job correctly.
And I guess maybe in work,
good hair and makeup, styling.
[chuckling]
Awards make me feel confident.
A couple years ago I did a play in the West End,
and, you know, I think when you can see
that the audience are really engaged
and having a great time
and engrossed in whatever it is you are doing,
yeah that feels really empowering.
I manage my mental health with medications.
[chuckling]
And also therapy, I go to therapy once a week at least.
Sometimes more 'cause we sometimes have
family therapy as well.
I try and be in a habit of writing gratitude lists
before I go to bed every night.
And I find that really,
really does keep me in check
more than anything else actually.
I think, you know, sometimes you can get bogged down
with sort of negativity in your life,
and especially with social media and stuff
you can sort of convince yourself
that your life is not in a good place.
And, so, if you can just sort of cut off
and take stock of all the really good things
and all of the great people,
and you know, the blessings that we have,
then yeah, that definitely helps me get to sleep, sure.
I mean I've definitely had quite a complex relationship
with drugs and alcohol throughout my life.
It was actually really hard.
There' one scene in particular,
it's a sort of a flashback to the night in question
where everything sort of goes wrong for Mel.
She makes a really, really monumentally bad decision,
although it's not really a decision
it just sort of happens.
And yeah, I could definitely relate to that,
but it was really, really difficult.
I've been sober now for nearly four years.
And it was incredibly triggering actually
to go back to that kind of a night.
Yeah. I did not find it remotely enjoyable at all.
I do not miss drinking and drug taking in the slightest.
Oh my goodness.
Sobriety has just changed my life like, immeasurably.
I don't think I'd be married to my husband.
I don't think that my kids would be thriving
in the way that they are.
I don't think that I'd have gone into, you know,
finding acting and how much I enjoy that.
I definitely wouldn't be getting as much sleep.
You know, I go to the gym four times a week.
I mean, pretty much every aspect of my life
has changed as a result of my sobriety.
I actually don't even know if I'd be alive, if I'm honest,
if I hadn't got sober.
So yeah, that's definitely at the top of my gratitude list
when I go to bed every night, is yeah, my sobriety.
Oh gosh, awful.
I absolutely detest and loathe social media
and pretty much everything about it.
I think what it's doing to us
as a species is just, like, awful.
I just yeah, I just loathe it. I'm sorry.
I know you're probably watching this via social media,
but you shouldn't be,
you should be out there doing something better.
I really struggle with it
because it's very hard to do anything sort of creative
and not be a part of it, you know.
It's anyone that wants to sort of fund anything.
You wanna get things commissioned.
People are always looking at that number
next to your name
and how interactive you are with other people.
I think that's why I love the theater so much actually,
is because you get up there, you do your job,
people stand up and give you an applause, or not,
and that's it, there's no number.
People don't come out and rate it and like it.
I mean, I think it's just, it's just all nonsense.
Like, you just, I shouldn't let any of that stuff
affect me quite frankly.
It's just so destructive
and I wish that I didn't interact with it,
but sometimes, you know, I'm not very good at not reacting.
I'm a reactive person.
I wish I wasn't.
I'm hoping I'll get to the stage
where I can just have somebody else
do all of that interaction for me.
I probably am at that stage.
[chuckling]
I just haven't found the person yet.
I moved to New York a couple of years ago,
and yeah, the Roe versus Wade thing got overturned.
It's pretty, feels pretty Handmaid's Taley
over there at the moment.
I guess I'm concerned and scared for my children.
I have spent a long time using my platform
to talk about issues that I feel are important to myself
and, you know, lots of other people.
But I guess I don't really know how helpful
it is at the moment.
I kind of like discussing those subject matters in my music,
but it's such a hot topic at the moment,
and I think that people are so into soundbites
and I tend to end up being such a lightning rod
and become a sort of, like, character that, you know,
people have carte blanche to be sort of horrible to
as a result of their political stance.
And so, you know, that's something I'm really excited about
where acting is concerned.
Is that I hope that I can start to talk about
these subject matters through this medium
rather than just tweeting about it or Instagramming.
'Cause I think it's kind of at the point now
where it's kind of oversaturated and getting lost.
I kind of want to pull away from that part
of my public persona or platform.
So yeah, I hope that I can just kind of
get my teeth stuck into sort of, like,
more media subject matters
and cover those things with drama.
Yeah, there were sort of rumors swirling around
that I had a had an album naming and shaming
the people in the music industry,
which is not really true to be honest.
I mean, I guess I did have a collection of songs
where I talked about, you know, my experiences,
funnily enough, 'cause I'm a singer
that writes songs about her experiences.
But yeah, there was no,
it wasn't like a sort of concerted effort.
I don't even know if those songs are gonna come out.
Music hasn't really had the same reckoning
in terms of Me Too, as film and TV and Hollywood.
And I think, I know I have many theories as to why that is,
but I think that when you are hired as a creative
on film or TV, you are taken on as an
employee of that production company or that studio.
And so you have protections that come with that, you know.
Most of these companies have human resources
and you can take that route to make complaints or whatever.
And when you are from personal experience,
when you are having problems with people
from a record company for instance,
as an artist, you are self-employed.
So you are out on your own really.
You don't have anyone to complain to except for yourself,
or your Instagram or your Twitter account
[chuckling]
I mean, I have sort of complicated feelings about it,
mainly because of the complicated relationship
I have with my parents.
So, I think that, you know, obviously,
I know that I've been born into
an incredibly privileged situation
and I have no problem or qualms with accepting that
and the opportunities that have been afforded to me.
But I think that that's more of a, you know,
the class that I was born into.
Yeah. Where, you know, where I went to school,
and the connections that I was able to forge with people
as a result of that.
There are people in my family
I don't really have relationships with.
So the idea that they handed things to me
on a plate is sort of complicated.
But whatever, I mean,
I'm just happy and I'm very grateful
and that's all I've got to say on the matter.
Gosh, I wish people could sort of see
yeah, what what me and David talk about in our private time.
They definitely wouldn't call us a power couple.
They just call us a couple of idiots.
We talk about it sometimes.
We talk about doing plays together.
You know, we really love each other
and like spending time with each other, funnily enough.
And we don't get to do enough of it.
You know, he's always off filming,
and I'm always, you know, doing stuff too.
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