Last week, Lily Allen revealed what has been painfully clear to me for a while: she isn’t eating right.
Speaking on her BBC podcast Miss Me? – which she presents with her best friend Miquita Oliver – Lily, 39, said that eating has become “a real problem” over the past three years and that hunger signals “don’t go from my body to my brain”. The mum-of-two added: ‘I’m not in a great place mentally at the moment.’
Suffering from anorexia myself—an eating disorder characterized by an obsessively strict diet—her words seemed hauntingly familiar. Lily’s problems are obvious to many who have been following her for a while.
The Smile singer has been extremely famous since her teenage years and stepped out of the spotlight around 2019. She battled the eating disorder bulimia in her early 20s and suffered tragedies – a stillborn son and a miscarriage – before the births of her two daughters. Then a divorce from the girls’ father, Sam Cooper.
Her 2018 album, No Shame, received critical acclaim but missed its mark commercially.
Lily dumped her management and parted ways with her record label a year later. She then married again – to Stranger Things actor David Harbour.
When Lily reappeared in the summer of 2021 to promote the West End play she starred in, 2:22 A Ghost Story, she had visibly changed.
Her performance was praised. But it was hard not to notice her new, extremely slim figure and angular cheekbones.
Lily, with her extraordinarily slim figure and angular cheekbones, at a fashion show in October
Lily on her BBC podcast Miss Me? She said food has become “a real problem” in the past three years
She looked so different. Somehow not like Lily Allen anymore.
Then began a seemingly endless stream of skinny selfies on Instagram, where she has 1.7 million followers.
The images – which she claimed showed off her outfits – often seemed to emphasize her protruding ribcage, shoulder bones and hollow stomach.
As the months passed, she seemed more and more vulnerable. It set off alarm bells for me and fans commenting on the photos begged her for help. “Worried about you Lily,” one wrote. “I feel like we grew up together and I’ve never seen you so skinny.” Lily replied, “You’ve never seen me completely sober for two years, not smoking and exercising every day.”
As if to prove it, among the body shots are photos in which she appears to be eating generous plates of spaghetti and luxurious sandwiches.
But judging by Lily’s recent confession, there may have been little other food consumption going on.
The whole thing made me so angry. In my early twenties, in the throes of my eating disorder—and in denial about how sick I was—I obsessively searched for photos of equally thin stars.
Anorexia is a disease of sick competition: images of models and celebrities with sharp collarbones, protruding spines and hollow cheeks can represent a ‘goal’ for those in the middle.
They also normalize an unhealthy thin aesthetic. Looking at those women, I thought my own malnourished body wasn’t so bad.
They are glamorous, successful and wealthy – and also underweight. It was ambitious, in a very toxic way.
Paradoxically, some of the stars I was most fixated on also promoted food and cooking, creating the toxic illusion that it’s possible to have a skeleton and eat healthy at the same time. It was hard not to look at Lily’s work in this kind of light. And that made me angry. Because I knew how damaging it could be to vulnerable young women like I used to be.
But in recent months I’ve changed my mind.
As a regular listener to Lily’s podcast, I noticed she started dropping hints that she was struggling with her mental health. There were several references to a “difficult time” she is currently experiencing.
Then came the final revelation. I listened to Lily’s words and felt so sad. If I had been in the room, I would have given her a big hug. And I realized that maybe she wasn’t aware of what she was doing. I know I wasn’t. I was transported back in time ten years, when I distracted myself with ridiculously long work hours on an empty stomach and pretended I didn’t have a problem. I remembered talking about my diagnosis in vague terms to begin with: telling friends I had a “hunger problem.”
Ultimately, calling it what it was – anorexia – saved my life, leading to medical treatment.
Sharing the messy details of my recovery online, through a blog and articles in this newspaper, has kept me accountable. It has also helped me find support from a community of people who have been through similar experiences – and offer that support to others.
I believe these are the reasons for my strong and lasting recovery. Because eating disorders thrive in secrecy. The symptoms often hide in plain sight and are dismissed as ‘dieting’ and simply careful or picky eating.
The tragic consequence of this is that patients do not recognize the problem and do not get help until it is too late. Only half of anorexia patients make a full recovery, but the chances are best for those who start treatment within two years of the onset of symptoms.
So I applaud Lily for her honesty and courage. Her willingness to share these kinds of experiences is rare among high-profile people. Celebrities seem comfortable describing their battles with more palatable illnesses like depression, anxiety or ADHD. But no bulimia or anorexia.
Lily in 2006. The singer struggled with the eating disorder bulimia in her early twenties
Fearne Cotton is an example of this. In 2019, the broadcasting and health guru, then 38, admitted she suffered from bulimia in her 20s. She had kept it a secret for at least ten years, during which time she had made her experiences with anxiety and panic attacks public.
I wrote a column in response to her confession, imploring celebrities to “come out” about these diseases. I argued that not all mental health issues can be summed up in a happy selfie.
If celebrities want to be honest about mental health, do it the right way – warts and all. For eating disorders, this means a long and complicated recovery, involving multiple specialists and sometimes an admission to hospital. Physical complications can arise, such as fertility problems and thinning of the bones, as well as embarrassing intestinal complaints as the digestive system kicks back into action.
I hope Lily Allen continues to talk all about this topic. It won’t be easy. But she needs to know not only how much her honesty will help her, but also what it will mean for the 1.2 million Britons battling this wretched disease.
It reminds us that we are not alone and that we are worthy of recovery. And, most importantly, that we have nothing to be ashamed of.