Lily Allen's dad taught her to "question everything and everyone".
The 28-year-old singer is the daughter of British actor-and-musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. She broke onto the music scene with her debut single Smile in 2006 and is currently getting ready to release her third album Sheezus later this year.
Many have spoken out against Lily's celebrity status and how she came to stardom. In a candid interview the pop star has opened up about her upbringing and her real journey to fame.
"A lot of my haters, or whatever you want to call them, say I'm only where I am because of my dad. Which is completely untrue. If anything I'm where I am today because of how hard my mom worked. I am middle-class kid who grew up in west London, my mum, however, was a working-class girl from Portsmouth who built a life for herself," Lily explained to British magazine ShortList.
"My dad left her when I was three or four... but what my dad did teach me was to never take things at face value, and not believe the hype, and question everything and everyone. It can be quite tiresome, and untrusting, and I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist. But I'm still curious and want to dig deeper into things that I have a lot of questions to be answered."
Lily addresses several fellow female musicians in her title track Sheezus such as Rita Ora and Katy Perry, who she has previously spoken out about. At the time she put her controversial comments down to being "insecure".
This time round the brunette musician insists she is simply referring to the bigger picture - women in the music industry being turned against each other.
"It just dribbled out! It's not supposed to be proactive and it's not attacking anyone, although it does namecheck a few people. It's about how girls are pitted against each other, unlike men. I know you had it in the Nineties with Blur versus Oasis, but it's not the same thing. It's like 'Who looks the best?', 'You're getting too old to do this, you shouldn't be doing that,'" she bemoaned.
"There seems to be a moral undertone when women are concerned that doesn't happen with men, and that's what the song is about. Stop this now. Feminism. I hate that word because it shouldn't even be a thing anymore. We're all equal, everyone is equal so why is there even a conversation about feminism?"
