Allens

STRANGER Things star David Harbour admitted he has “made mistakes” over the last 10 years just WEEKS before ex-wife Lily Allen released her bombshell album.

The couple, who split after a five year marriage in February this year, have had their relationship thrust into the spotlight after Lily’s blistering attack on her marriage on new album, West End Girl.

The 14-track album was dropped last week, but shortly before the release, Harbour briefly spoke about ‘regrets’ while promoting the upcoming final season of Stranger Things.

Talking to Esquire Spain, Harbour was asked to reflect on the past decade of his life in line with how long he has played burly cop Jim Hopper on the show.

He responded by calling it a “hard question” and, while not addressing Lily specifically, he said: “I would change either everything or nothing. 

“You either accept your path completely and realise that even the pain and the slip-ups and the mistakes are all part of the journey, and that there’s truth and growth, wisdom and deeper empathy and connection in all that.”

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“It’s kind of like a house of cards,” he added. “The minute you try to change one thing you kind of have to change it all.”

Ultimately he said he’d change “everything” and “just make his life happy and silly”, though it would “suck” not to be an actor.

West End Girl

On West End Girl, Lily chronicles her relationship with Harbour, starting with their whirlwind relationship after meeting on Raya in 2019 and setting up their life together in New York.

However, she notes things began to unravel after she landed a part in a West End production of 2:22 A Ghost Story, which required her to come back to London.

She then accuses him of getting close to a woman she names “Madeline”, despite them having an “arrangement” for him to sleep with other people.

Mentioning her on the track ‘Tennis’, fans were abuzz with the question: “Who the f**k is Madeline?”

While Lily has said the album, which features alleged dates and supposed voice notes, is a mixture of fact and fiction, the the real life “Madeline” has spoken out, with New Orleans based costume designer Natalie Tippett, 34, claiming to have been involved in the fling.

David and Natalie reportedly began an affair while working on 2021 film We Have A Ghost, despite marrying Lily the previous year in Las Vegas.

He later allegedly flew Natalie to his home in Atlanta, Georgia.

Since the album has been released, Harbour has not commented on the claims on the songs – which took Lily 10 days to make and record.

It’s also unclear where the line between fact and fiction stands on the album.

Despite this, Lily made another dig at her ex – dressing up as cartoon character Madeline for Halloween as she partied with friends in Los Angeles.

For the first time in seven years, Lily Allen is back with a new album. It’s intimate, raw and autofictional.

Last week, the “Smile” singer shared a 14-track breakup record, “West End Girl.” Amid her split with “Stranger Things” actor David Harbour, Allen provides an in-depth look into a broken relationship where the line between being open and being unfaithful is thin, where dating apps are on the table and where heartbreak seems inevitable.

The album, which was written in 10 days last December, begins with Allen’s move to New York. The singer relocated to the East Coast in 2020 with her two daughters and then-husband, following the couple’s whirlwind wedding in Las Vegas. When Allen started dating Harbour in 2019, she had just finalized her divorce from Sam Cooper, with whom she shares her children.

On “West End Girl’s” opening track, she sings about receiving an offer to be in a West End production in London. In 2021, Allen made her debut in the supernatural play “2:22 — A Ghost Story.” From that moment on, tensions and distance only continued to build between the pair. Toward the end of the title track, Allen includes her end of a call where her partner is seemingly asking to open up the marriage.

As the pop melodies continue to ebb and flow, Allen reveals accusations of infidelity, the complications of being in an open marriage and mentions a pseudonym for a mistress on a track named “Madeline.” She doesn’t stray away from details, especially when it comes to finding boxes of sex toys, love letters from other women and calling her partner a “sex addict” on “P— Palace.”

By the end of the record, she makes it clear that the relationship is irreparable. The pair announced their separation last February after four years of marriage. Since the project’s release last Friday, critics have been quick to fawn over Allen’s return to music and Allen has been sure to let the press know the album is not fully based in fact.

In an interview with The Times, the U.K.’s oldest national daily newspaper, she says, “I don’t think I could say it’s all true — I have artistic license. … But yes, there are definitely things I experienced within my relationship that have ended up on this album.”

She similarly told Perfect Magazine that the work can be considered “autofiction” and that an “alter ego” is singing. When sitting down with British Vogue, she clarified that the album is inspired by what went on in the relationship between, but “that’s not to say that it’s all gospel,”

Harbour has yet to directly speak out about their relationship and has strayed away from the public eye, disabling comments on his Instagram page.

In an interview with GQ in April, he said, “There’s no use in that form of engaging [with tabloid news] because it’s all based on hysterical hyperbole.”

The highly anticipated final season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” where Harbour plays the role of police chief Jim Hopper, will be released Nov. 27.