Lily Allen is adamant that female fame means "being seen and not heard."
The British singer shot to stardom in 2006 after releasing her critically acclaimed debut album Alright, Still, and went on to earn a Grammy and a Brit nomination for her efforts. Since then, Lily has been dubbed a controversial figure in the music industry due to her outspoken nature when it comes to social and political issues, but she claims her approach to fame was heavily influenced by that of her male relatives also in the public eye.
"Growing up, my dad (actor Keith Allen} was quite famous and so was my stepdad (comedian Harry Enfield), and they were praised for speaking their mind and going out and getting f**ked up," the 33-year-old recalled in an interview with Stylist magazine. "So when I imitated that behaviour and was met with a completely different response, I was like, ‘Oh’. It was only relatively recently I realised that what I thought was fame, as a kid growing up, was male fame, which is a different breed to female fame. It’s being seen and not heard, isn’t it?"
The Not Fair hitmaker went on to describe the music industry as "a boy's club" with female artists too scared to speak up out of fear of losing "long-term album deals." But as a mother of two daughters, Ethel, six and 5-year-old Marnie, Lily shared that the sexism in the world can make parenting a challenge.
"It’s really difficult for me as a mother of daughters to be like, 'You can do whatever you want,' because actually they can’t," she lamented. "I want to believe that, and that’s the struggle: filling them with confidence and the reality of what the world is about. Because I don’t f**king know. I thought it was one way, and I’ve got here and realised it isn’t."
