Lily Allen has revealed her guilty pleasure is leaving her children at home while she travels for work.
The British singer, 39, made the candid confession during the latest episode of her podcast Miss Me? with her longtime friend Miquita Oliver.
Lily shares daughters Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper and they now live with her new husband, Stranger Things star David Harbour, 48, in America.
During a discussion about guilty pleasures, the Smile songstress opened up about how she enjoys leaving her children in New York when she visits her native London.
Yet while she said she enjoys having the freedom to return to her home city and reconnect with old friends, she did admit that she is then overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and shame.
During the podcast Lily was asked what her guilty pleasure was and she immediately replied ‘Leaving my kids’, to which Miquita mused: ‘Oh yeah, because it is pleasurable?’
Lily Allen revealed in the latest episode of podcast Miss Me? is that her guilty pleasure is ‘leaving her children at home’ (pictured at the Chanel Pre-BAFTAs Dinner in February)
Lily shares daughters Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper and confessed she enjoys leaving them behind in New York to travel to London (pictured in 2022)
Lily continued: ‘Sometimes when I’ve been in New York with the kids for a month and David hasn’t been around and I know I’ve got a trip planned somewhere I’ll get out of the door and just, “ahhhhh,”‘ as she mimicked breathing a sigh of relief.
‘But then I’ll get out the door and half an hour later I feel guilty.’ she added.
‘Not even half an hour, 20 minutes, maybe 10, maybe five, maybe as soon as I walk across the threshold I’m enjoying myself but I feel guilt.’
Miquita then asked the singer if there was a ‘low hum of guilt’ when she returned to London for work and to ‘reconnect’, to which Lilly replied there was.
She added that she also felt a lot of shame before her friend jumped in to reassure her that she was giving her children a wonderful life.
Lily then drily joked: ‘How dare I be so selfish as to try and do some work and set up a flat here for us’.
The singer-turned actress’s confession comes after she admitted in September she ‘had kids for all the wrong reasons‘ in a heartbreaking attempt to find ‘unconditional love’.
Lily revealed how she hoped pregnancy would help her pause her ‘high speed’ career and fix a love which she ‘hadn’t felt since being a child.’
Lily and her daughters now live with her new husband, Stranger Things star David Harbour, 48, in America and he takes care of them when she visits her native London
Her father is actor Keith Allen, 70, who walked out on her mother Alison Owen, 63, when Lily was four years old, and she has been open about their fractious relationship.
Speaking on their podcast, Lily and Miquita candidly discussed how her desire for children came from a place of searching for a love she hadn’t felt herself.
‘I think I had children for all the wrong reasons really because I was yearning for unconditional love, which I haven’t felt in my life since I was a child,’ she said.
Lily added: ‘Also my career was at such a high speed, you know high pressure and I’m a people pleaser and I felt like very overwhelmed by what was happening.
‘I just didn’t get much respite and I felt like the one way to stop people hassling me, it’s not about me its about this other person that’s inside me.
‘They did leave me alone, but I don’t think I really understood what I got myself into.’
After years spent as one of London’s most notorious party girls, she moved to the country and had children in 2011.
Back in March, Lily said her two daughters ‘totally ruined’ her pop career because she chose to prioritise them instead of work – insisting, ‘You can’t have it all’.
The singer-turned-actress said she believes women have to decide whether to put their children or their career first, saying she chose the former.
‘My children ruined my career. I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop-stardom, they totally ruined it,’ she told the Radio Times Podcast.
‘I get really annoyed when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t.’
She added: ‘Some people choose their career over their children and that’s their prerogative, but my parents were quite absent when I was a kid. I feel like it left some nasty scars that I’m not willing to repeat on mine.’
Lily previously revealed she had kids to fix a love which she ‘hadn’t felt since being a child’ following the breakdown of her parent’s marriage (pictured in 2007 with father Keith Allen)
