Lily Allen Just Got Seriously Real About Her And David Harbour’s Sex Life, And Said He 'Quite Often Asks For Things' In The Bedroom That She Won’t Do
Dave Benett / Dave Benett / Getty Images for Burberry
Nobody can accuse Lily Allen of holding back when it comes to her BBC podcast Miss Me?, which she hosts alongside her lifelong friend and British TV personality Miquita Oliver.
Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images
Since the podcast launched earlier this year, Lily has spoken candidly about everything from her drug use to her "daddy issues" — and on Monday’s episode of the show, she even shared some insight into her sex life with her husband, David Harbour.
For context, Lily met David after they matched on the exclusive celebrity dating app Raya back in 2019, with Lily insisting that she had no idea who he was at the time as she had never watched his hit Netflix show Stranger Things.
The following year, David moved in with Lily amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rest is history.
The pair got married in a Las Vegas ceremony in September 2020, and now live in Brooklyn, New York, with Lily’s two daughters from her marriage to Sam Cooper, 12-year-old Ethel and 11-year-old Marnie.
Speaking to GQ about the start of his and Lily’s relationship back in 2022, David recalled the exact moment that he fell in love with the singer during their third date.
He told the publication at the time: “I was just in this phase where I was like, I’m just going to be brutally honest about everything, because why lie? And I told her something about my life, about my beliefs…”
David reportedly hesitated before adding: “It would take a really extraordinary person to be accepting of the things that I said. And I remember thinking: ‘Wow, that’s somebody I want to be around.’”
The star didn’t divulge any further information about the beliefs he told Lily, or what they were in relation to.
Victoria Jones - Pa Images / PA Images via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Lily previously admitted on her podcast that despite being married once before, David marked the first official date that she had ever been on — and she remembered researching certain protocols because everything was so new to her.
“I remember googling when I was with him, when I first started dating David, like, how many dates are you meant to go on before you sleep with someone,” she told Miquita.
“And there was a different answer depending on whether they’re English or American," Lily added. "I think English was five and American was seven. That was the Google protocol that I read.”
Sean Zanni / WireImage
And Lily opened up some more about her and David’s life together on this week’s episode of Miss Me?, where she revealed that he “often” asks for them to do certain things in the bedroom that she will refuse to entertain.
The conversation started because the theme of the episode was “kink,” and a listener asked her and Miquita if they had ever “kink-shamed” somebody.
Lily began by saying that she is incredibly open-minded as she referenced how honest she has been about her promiscuity over the years.
“I’m quite into normalizing everything that people are ashamed about in themselves,” she explained. “I was talking to David about this last night; during the breakdown of my last marriage, I was very, very promiscuous and experimental, and I had sex with female sex workers.”
Vittorio Zunino Celotto / Getty Images
“I wrote about it in my book,” Lily went on. “Because I felt like I lived in a state of perpetual fear in that period of time because I’ve always felt like I was about to be gotchaed by the tabloids. So I knew that this thing existed, and that I've been behaving this way, and I thought I was going to take a little bit of the power back and reveal it myself in my book.”
“I did that for two reasons,” she continued. “One, to try and reclaim a little bit of the power where that conversation was concerned, but also because I think that lots of other people have done the same thing, and I think that when they hear someone like me talk about their own experiences in a non-shameful, sort of matter-of-fact way, then it makes people feel better about themselves.”
“So I'm always wanting to do that,” Lily concluded. “To me, that's what art is; that's what creativity is; helping people come to terms with their own behavior, and behavior that society sometimes looks down on, but we’re all just human, right?”
Gilbert Flores / Variety via Getty Images
Thinking out loud, Lily then added: “I wonder if I kink-shame my husband. Because he quite often asks for things, and I’m like: ‘No, babe, it’s not happening.’”
Theo Wargo / Getty Images
“I’m not like: ‘You piece of shit, how dare you ask me to do that!'” she then joked. “I’m just like: ‘Hmm, headache. Little headache, got a bit of a headache — maybe not tonight.’”
Vivien Killilea / Getty Images for BoxLunch
Throughout the podcast, Lily repeatedly referenced times that she had been more experimental in the bedroom when she was younger, and when she told Miquita that she’d called past partners “daddy” during sex, she admitted that David would be wondering where her “sexy” side had gone.
Justin Tallis / AFP via Getty Images
“Oh my god, I really hope my husband doesn’t listen to this show,” she exclaimed after making the revelation. “He’s going to just be like: ‘Where? Where is this person that’s doing all these sexy things?’ Like: ‘Why are you lying to everyone that you’re this liberated…’”
“David would love this! David would love this kinky bitch!” Miquita interjected, before earnestly asking her friend: “So why do you think this kinky bitch has gone? Where did she go?”
“I think the alcohol had quite a lot to do with the kink for me,” Lily confessed. “Before I got together with David, I don’t think I’d ever had sex not drunk, actually. Unless, maybe, like, morning sex, but still a bit drunk and definitely high.”
Stephane Cardinale - Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images
Lily has opened up about her addiction battle many times over the years. During an appearance on The Recovery podcast in 2021, Lily said that she turned to drugs and alcohol at a young age because she “was just really sad.”
And earlier this month, Lily said that she believes she subconsciously sabotaged her success in America during the early days of her singing career by admitting to US border control officers that she’d taken drugs, voiding her working visa.
Lily has been sober since 2019, and previously told Glamour: “I actually don’t even know if I’d be alive, if I’m honest, if I hadn’t got sober. Sobriety has just changed my life immeasurably.”