Lily Allen says she was 'foolish' to apologise on behalf of UK for refugee crisis

Lily Allen has said she was “foolish” for apologising on behalf of the UK for the refugee crisis in Calais.

Allen, 33, broke down in tears after meeting an Afghan teenager at the jungle camp in 2016 who she apologised to “on behalf of my country” for “what we have put you through”.

She was heavily criticised online with one user telling her to “put away the crocodile tears and speak for herself”, while another said: “On behalf of England, we apologise for Lily Allen.”

Allen said in hindsight her words were “clumsy” but that she had the right “intentions”.

Recalling the outrage in her new memoir My Thoughts Exactly, she wrote: “It was a clumsy thing to say. I wanted to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ and I wanted to acknowledge that I was part of the problem, and that we are all part of the problem if we don’t do more to help. The words came out badly, and for that I felt foolish. I was embarrassed about putting it like that.”

She continued: “I can be a moron. But my intentions were straightforward and without any agenda. I just wanted to help, in whatever tiny way I could.”

Allen said the online bullying she experienced “went off the charts” after she made the comments and revealed how trolls targeted her children in the abuse.

The Smile singer met the teen while filming a segment for the Victoria Derbyshire show in the French city two years ago.

“It just seems that at three different intervals in this young boy’s life, the English in particular have put you in danger,” she said.

“We’ve bombed your country, put you in the hands of the Taliban and now put you in danger of risking your life to get into our country.

“I apologise on behalf of my country. I’m sorry for what we have put you through.”

She said at the time that she understood why people were outraged by immigration, saying: “I don't berate those people for having this kind of opinion, they're being fed a lie by the media.

“There are desperate people in this country, but it's not refugees that are the problem, it's this government.”