Lily Allen has written a breakup album

The "Smile" singer wrote her fifth album in 16 days during her split from actor David Harbour.

By Emma Keates | October 17, 2025 | 3:45pm

Photo: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

Music News Lily Allen

It’s never a great time to be going through a breakup, but at least future dumpees will have some new material from the queen of condescension herself, Lily Allen. In a new profile from British Vogue, Allen shared that she mined her own recent split from Stranger Things actor David Harbour for material for a yet-to-be titled fifth album. It will be her first since 2018’s No Shame, but it sounds like those seven years away didn’t translate to any sort of sluggishness in her writing process. Allen reportedly wrote the album in 16 days in December 2024, partly “as a way for me to process what was happening in my life,” she shared.

Allen didn’t confirm or deny rumors of infidelity on the part of Harbour, whom she married in 2020, when asked, but rather answered, in the magazine’s words, “in the manner of someone who has recently spent an inordinate amount of money on lawyers’ fees.” “There are things that are on the record that I experienced within my marriage, but that’s not to say that it’s all gospel,” Allen said. “It is inspired by what went on in the relationship.” Even if a selection of lyrics shared by the outlet were just a way for her to process the “confusion, sorrow, grief, [and] helplessness” she felt as her relationship fell apart, they do seem to point to some sort of infidelity. “You let me think it was me in my head / And nothing to do with them girls in your bed,” she reportedly sings on “Sleepwalking,” a track Vogue characterizes as a “standout.” On “Dallas Major,” she sings, “You know I used to be quite famous that was way back in the day / I probably should explain how my marriage has been open since my husband went astray.” Another called “4chan” reportedly contains the lyric, “What a sad, sad man, it’s giving 4chan stan.”