Lily Allen discusses estrangement from actor father Keith

Lily Allen has discussed being estranged from her actor father Keith, saying they “haven’t connected for a while”.

The singer is set to appear on stage this month in 2:22: A Ghost Story at London’s Noël Coward theatre. Talking about her parents’ reaction to her theatre debut, Allen told The Telegraph that her mother, the producer Alison Owen, has been supportive, but she has not heard from her father, The Pembrokeshire Murders star Keith.

She said: “I haven’t really spoken to him, to be honest, for a while. The last time I texted him was on Father’s Day and he texted back saying ‘Thank you’. We haven’t connected for a while.”

Allen has spoken about her and her father’s strained relationship before, and in 2018 she revealed that they fell out over something she wrote in her memoir that year.

In her book, My Thoughts Exactly, Allen claimed that Keith had had a cocaine-related heart attack at Glastonbury Festival in 1998 when she was 14. She said this admission made her father “quite cross” and he claimed it was actually due to acute food poisoning.

Several years before that, in 2015, Allen tweeted: “My dad walked out on me when I was 4, I’m sick of this. My dad was at Latitude when I headlined and didn’t even come to see me. I’ve probably spent more time walking my dogs than I have with my dad my entire life.”

The Telegraph interview at the weekend also saw Allen talking about her mental health. She told the publication: “I was living life in a bubble for a long time, which was about me, me, me. [But now] I think I’m ready to open myself up to feeling things, which I haven’t been in the past.

“I’ve spent the past 15 to 20 years self-medicating and being quite numb about feelings… I feel I’m capable of behaving like a connected adult in a way I haven’t for a long time.”

2:22 is on at the Noel Coward Theatre, London, from 3 August.

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