Lily Allen’s mum feared singer would die like Amy Winehouse!
Lily Allen’s mum feared her daughter was headed for the same fate as Amy Winehouse.
The singer, 38, who is now settled with her ‘Stranger Things’ actor husband David Harbour, 48, and her two children, went through a wild period when she hit fame as a singer, and her mother Alison Owen says she saw Lily and Amy go through disturbingly similar struggles when they were first thrust into the public eye.
Alison, 63, who is a producer on the upcoming Amy Winehouse biopic ‘Back to Black’, told The Times she though being in the spotlight “would destroy my daughter” and lead her down the same grim path Amy ended up on – which saw her die aged 27 in 2011 from alcohol poisoning.
Referring to Lily’s former hellraising actor dad Keith Allen, 70, she added: “Lily fitted the bill because, early in her success, her role model was her dad.
“She’d seen him idolized for swearing, taking drugs and being drunk in the Groucho Club (in London), so in her young brain she thought that’s what you did when you became famous.
“She didn’t realize it’s only OK for men. Women get punished for it.”
Alison said photographers would wait for Lily in the early days of her fame and “say things like, ‘I see your single’s going down the charts,’ or, ‘You’ve put on weight, Lily’” in the hope of making her “angry or cry”.
Alison also spoke about feeling disturbed after seeing Amy looking high on drugs and shockingly thin while out with her former partner Blake Fielder-Civil, 41, at a music industry party.
She said: “Amy was as thin as a pencil. And she and Blake were in the middle of this room dancing in a full-on sexual way.
“Both were clearly ‘using’ and I remember thinking, ‘This is an accident waiting to happen. This is going to be a disaster.’”
Lily has now been sober for four years and is focusing on her acting career from her home in the US, where she is raising her daughters, 12-year-old Ethel and 10-year-old Marnie, who she had with her 46-year-old first husband Sam Cooper.
Alison added: “Lily was lucky. She’s happy bringing up her children.”