Lily Allen has spoken about how the ‘West End Girl’ shows are the first she has done fully sober, and said that part of her “misses the post-show celebrations”.
The London singer and actor is currently out on the road, embarking on her ‘West End Girl’ tour which celebrates the hit 2025 album of the same name.
It marked her fifth studio album, and was written and recorded in 10 days following the collapse of her marriage to the Stranger Things actor, after he allegedly cheated on her.
Allen previously described the record as “a mixture of fact and fiction” that details the “complexities of relationships and how we all navigate them”, and has said it was inspired by her “deep-rooted issues with rejection and abandonment” after her divorce. She later stated that she did not view it as a “cruel” album and was not seeking “revenge”.
The shows also mark the first full tour that Allen has embarked on since becoming fully sober – with her previously speaking about how she has been clean for several years now, having struggled with both binge drinking and drug abuse in the past.
LILY ALLEN for The Cut FALL FASHION ISSUE 🌟
Read @lilyallen’s cover story: https://t.co/8YLR4s5Njl pic.twitter.com/iKDe2SSuwN
— The Cut (@TheCut) September 14, 2026
Speaking to The Cut about how it feels to be performing such personal, vulnerable music live, over a year since she recorded it in the studio, Allen shared how she is appreciative of the fans’ support for the tour, and how while seeing “the audience singing your words back” usually fills her “with a real sense of joy and adrenaline and achievement”, this time it feels different because she is “not myself on stage” but simply “playing someone two years removed from where I am now”.
She spoke about having recently played three sold-out nights at The O2 in London, saying: “I was like, ‘Why am I not feeling like this is the best moment of my life?’ And it’s because I am not me when I’m up there… It’s also different because I’m not drunk and high, which I always have been in the past when I’ve been on stage. This is the first tour that I’ve done sober.”
Asked about how it feels to be sober and on tour, she replied: “It doesn’t feel very rock and roll. Like, we come off stage and we play Monopoly. And sometimes I get into my pyjamas, and I just go straight into the car and back to my hotel room.
Allen continued: “There is a part of me that misses the post-show celebrations. But at the same time, I really don’t miss the fucking hangovers and getting to the airport the next day with a pounding head and having to wear sunglasses and stinking of alcohol.”
The ‘Madeline’ singer has spoken about her struggles with drinking and drug abuse in the past too, sharing at the start of last year that she “could be quite mean” before she got sober, and also saying in 2024 that she could “lose everything” if she drank alcohol again while recalling the time she got banned from London’s Groucho Club.
She previously opened up about how her “life [had] changed so much” since she decided to quit, also discussed how “drugs and alcohol were very good at drowning out [her] inner critic”, adding: “When you take cocaine you think all of your ideas are brilliant and need to be shared.”
She said earlier that fame “became an addiction in itself”, citing “the attention and the paparazzi and the chaos” at the height of her popularity. In 2007, Allen admitted to having an “addictive personality”, and revealed the previous year that she used to deal drugs when she was a teenager.
