The blooming of Lily Allen

IT wasn’t so long ago that Lily Allen – from whom the words gobby, outspoken and provo­cative are never far away – announced she was leaving the glittering world of pop after ­discovering it was nothing but a fake.

Lily Allen scooped up the awards at the Ivor Novellos Lily Allen scooped up the awards at the Ivor Novellos

“I got sucked in and attracted by something I thought was real and now I’ve realised it isn’t. It’s not ­necessarily something I want to be part of,” she said resignedly last month.

But the genuine feeling she ­displayed on scooping three Ivor Novello Awards on Thursday seems to tell another story. Lily Allen, elegantly dressed in a cream medieval-style gown and hugging her three-year-old half-sister Teddi, burst into tears ­during the ceremony as she took two gongs for her No1 single The Fear and one for songwriter of the year.

“I suddenly feel that I’m respected. I feel really, really overwhelmed,” she spluttered. “I didn’t realise I was an exceptional songwriter. I just thought I wrote nursery rhymes, little ditties that I write for myself.” Of The Fear she added: “This song is so much about feeling so lost... it has made me feel quite found all of a sudden.”

It rather made you feel for her. Indeed if Lily likes to court controversy – and she does – her hat-trick of awards has demonstrated how she has been warmly embraced by the cream of the music industry and her choice of words suggests she ­genuinely believes the endorsement.

Her shock at discovering she is talented is really quite refreshing and it has given her confidence a boost. She has subsequently said that her exit from the music world might not be so absolute as she had suggested. “I’m still writing songs and would like to write for Lady GaGa. Or if the ­producer of the next Sugababes album is here, I’m available,” she said, characteristically cheekily.

At the same time her father, the comic actor Keith Allen, stressed how Lily “wants to have a family now” and indeed she has herself intimated how she hankers after a life of domesticity ever since she described herself as being in “absolute bliss” when she was expecting a baby two years ago with her then boyfriend Ed Simmons of The Chemical Brothers. She suffered a miscarriage and the couple split a few weeks later.

Lily even managed to get through the Ivor Novello ceremony without stroppily bad-mouthing anyone and it all points to one thing: a growing maturity. It’s not a word that has troubled Lily too much in her career so far. After all this is the woman (and a young woman – she is still only 25) who has run into slanging matches head-on, ever since she bounded on to the pop scene back in 2006 kitted out in prom dresses and trainers. (“I’ve done that look to death,” she said three years ago.)

There are numerous examples. There was the famous awards ceremony in September 2008 when she told Sir Elton John, mid swig of her champagne, to “f*** off”, adding that she was 40 years younger than the veteran singer “with my career in front of me”. The word “brat” sprang to mind, even if Sir Elton rather good- humouredly replied that he could still “snort her under the table”.

Bob Geldof, in Lily’s view, is a ­“sanctimonious prat”, his socialite daughter Peaches “a useless oaf” and Paris Hilton “hideously untalented”. The prospect of Kylie Minogue ­playing Glastonbury has been denounced by Lily as “the ultimate insult to it” and she has said Victoria Beckham “gives a bad image to children. No one should be that skinny”. Then there’s the latest fisticuffs with Courtney Love (a “drug-addled lunatic”).

If there is a fine line between ­feistiness and plain insulting Lily has crossed it.

The numerous times she has been spotted out and about the worse for wear cannot be ignored either. She has admitted to liking a drink (“I’m drunk most of the time,” she said last year) and has been pictured topless in Cannes (“they’re just t***”) as well as once wearing a satin dress adorned with images of a decapitated Bambi.

“I’ve had enough of Lily Allen, I want to be me now,” she asserted last month, adding that everyone thinks they know her because of this cartoon image that has sprung up. It’s easy to see why we think we have Lily down pat, however. She has been quick to post every opinion and insult on the internet and she is certainly no stranger to tweeting. Even her song lyrics pummel the depths of ­intimacy, she writes about boyfriends who dump her or who are useless in bed.

Earlier this year David Cameron complained about how his six-year-old daughter was “obsessed” with Lily but how he found her lyrics “unsuitable”. Nevertheless he still gave one of her CDs to visiting President Barack Obama along with the likes of Radiohead, The Smiths and Gorillaz in a selection of music which was supposed to represent the best of British. But this is the point – Lily has gained respectability even if it has been a little time coming.

Part of the reason for Lily’s provocative persona must surely be her background. Her father, the confrontational Keith who is rumoured to have fathered eight children by six women, left the family home when Lily was four and is the subject of her song He Wasn’t There.

Lily was brought up by her producer mother Alison Owen, who once described herself as a ­“single-mother punk student” and who went on to produce such historical epics as Elizabeth (Lily had a small part). Owen also went on to date Harry Enfield after she split with Keith.

“I think I was probably fighting for a bit of attention my whole life,” Lily has conceded. “In social ­situations I felt like people were always looking over my shoulder, looking for my dad or for Harry. I guess I felt: hey, maybe I can be the one they look at for a bit.”

Growing up, she rather went off the rails, being expelled from a number of private schools and left at 15 with no qualifications. Then she took herself off to Ibiza for the summer, apparently sold ecstasy to clubbers and began to think about making music of her own. She was first noticed in 2005 when she began a MySpace page and her first single Smile was released in 2006 and went to No1.

H er image and attitude seem to have changed a good deal since then. She is far slimmer, more groomed and now hangs out with Kate Moss. But she has confessed she did not deal well with fame to begin with.

“Becoming famous is scary and weird and I had no idea how to ­handle it,” she has said. “You get invited to parties and there’s free drink and drugs. Well, you do, don’t you? Then you wake up and people are calling you ugly and fat and ­saying what a state you are.”

She has said her barbs directed at skinny stars might have had something to do with her own self image. “I felt ‘Oh God, I’m short, fat, ugly and I hate all these people who flaunt their beauty’,” she explained.

She doesn’t appear to realise she’s beautiful herself and has admitted to bouts of depression for which she has sought treatment. The results, she says, have been beneficial.

In fact lately everything seems to be coming together. After having relationships with several older men – including her dad’s pal, art dealer Jay Jopling – she is now settled with a rather more low-key boyfriend, painter and decorator Sam Cooper. And she also has her Ivor Novellos to keep her focused.

As she said at the ceremony: “I’m blown away.”

Would you like to receive news notifications from Daily Express?