Lily Allen's children were threatened after she apologised to an Afghan immigrant "on behalf of the U.K.".
The singer, who has always been vocal with her criticism for the British government, caused a storm when she blamed the U.K. as she spoke to a 13-year-old Afghan boy during a visit to the now demolished refugee camp in Calais, France, last year (17).
After the teen explained how he ended up in the camp, dubbed The Jungle, after fleeing the Taliban, a tearful Lily told him: “I apologise on behalf of my country for what we've put you through”.
The offhand comment caused an instant backlash, with many individuals, including politicians, slamming her sentiment. But writing in her new memoir My Thoughts Exactly, Lily revealed that it wasn't only her subjected to threats - but her children, Ethel, six, and five-year-old Marnie as well.
"I got a lot of stick about my visit to Calais. I’ve always been trolled and bullied on social media, but after Calais the online bullying I experienced went off the charts," Lily wrote. "People jumped to conclusions and made assumptions about everything I said: when I said, for example, that I believed our invasion of Iraq was wrong, they accused me of slandering the Armed Forces as a whole.
"People wrote in violent terms about what they’d like to do to me and what I deserved. They often included my kids when they discussed dishing out my punishments. I minded all that."
Lily added that while she probably phrased her words to the young immigrant wrong, she had meant what she said, "without any agenda".
"It was a clumsy thing to say," she acknowledged. "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.
"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."
