Lily Allen has responded to claims of a “smear campaign” being launched against her following her kicking off her ‘West End Girl’ tour.
The singer launched her intimate ‘West End Girl’ UK tour in Glasgow on Monday (March 2) – her first public show in seven years.
The set comprised two acts: the first half filled with earlier favourites like ‘Smile’ and ‘The Fear’ played by a string section, though Allen does not appear onstage. For the second half, she played her acclaimed, BRIT-nominated 2025 album in full. The latter was written and recorded in 10 days, and centred around the dissolution of her marriage to Stranger Things’ David Harbour amid claims of his infidelity.
In the set, Allen incorporated various props to align with the lyrics in her songs, including a “shoebox full of handwritten letters, from brokenhearted women” that she details in ‘Pussy Palace’, and a large piece of cloth that showed receipts for the gifts that Harbour allegedly bought for other women, as detailed in ‘4chan Stan’.
Since the tour kicked off, however, some fans have taken to social media to highlight what they perceive to be an increased amount of backlash facing Allen, and insinuate that it is a smear campaign.
Among various things that the singer is being criticised for is the length of the ‘West End Girl’ live set – which comes in at under an hour – the show’s design, claims from Zoe Kravitz that the singer “attacked” her by kissing her, and resurfaced images of Allen dressing up in a way that made a nod to Dr Luke for Halloween in 2014. The latter took place shortly after Kesha accused the music producer of sexual assault, which Dr Luke has always denied.
Oh it’s coming from somewhere, but we move ! https://t.co/7eyXMPYnue
— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) March 5, 2026
One of the fans to suggest that there was an abrupt rise in backlash aimed at the singer was someone with the X/Twitter handle heroinchictwink, who wrote: “The way this smear campaign against Lily Allen came out of nowhere.”
In response, Allen replied to the comment and suggested that she had noticed the same thing. “Oh it’s coming from somewhere, but we move!” she wrote, then also adding that the backlash could be coming from fake accounts, sharing: “Bots<Birkins”.
Bots<Birkins
— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) March 5, 2026
While many of the ‘West End Girl’ songs were given a live debut at the Glasgow gig earlier this week, Allen had previously played ‘Madeline’ and ‘Sleepwalking’ on Saturday Night Live, and given ‘Pussy Palace’, ‘Tennis’ and ‘Just Enough’ their live debuts at a private show in LA.
Since that gig in Scotland, the tour has continued in Liverpool on Tuesday (March 3) ahead of further dates in Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, Manchester, Nottingham, Cambridge, Bristol, Cardiff and London.
From there, Allen will head out on a UK and Ireland arena tour to perform ‘West End Girl’ later this year, marking the biggest headline trek of her career. She has also been confirmed as the final headliner for Boardmasters 2026, will be topping the bill at London’s Mighty Hoopla and more. Find any remaining tickets here.
‘West End Girl’ was nominated for three awards at last weekend’s BRITs, but did not win any trophies, and since it came out, Allen has insisted that it is “not a cruel album”, saying she does not “need revenge”.
The singer also explained that making the record had been “an act of desperation”, and called the collection “a mixture of fact and fiction”.
Since the split with Harbour, she has confirmed that she is in a relationship with Sigmund Freud’s great-great-grandson, Jonah Freud, and Harbour has also spoken about the controversy, saying that he would “change either everything or nothing” about life.
‘West End Girl’ landed at Number 13 on NME‘s 50 best albums of 2025 list, while the track ‘Pussy Palace’ bagged the Number 21 spot in our 50 best songs of the year feature.
English (US) · 