Singer Lily Allen revealed her dating ‘red flags’ following her split from husband David Harbour, who allegedly had a secret profile on the dating app Raya. The 39-year-old opened up about her past romances as well as her behaviour in relationships, and spoke about how her first partner Lester Lloyd triggered a pattern of behaviour that followed her in future relationships.
Speaking on her own podcast, ‘Miss Me?‘ with co-host Miquita Oliver, Allen said: “I think I was a tactile kid but as soon as I got my first boyfriend Lester [Lloyd], a complete transference of intimacy.”
“Not only did I not want to touch, be cuddled or kissed by any one in my family, I couldn’t engage in it with them either.
“It was like, ‘No, this person is where I put that now’. It’s incredibly red flag, co dependent behaviour. I just put all my emotional dependency on one person.”
Allen also spoke about kissing, saying she finds the act “quite perverse.”
“Personally I love being kissed, I think it is a wonderful thing. I will say I think its quite perverse,” she said. “When two heterosexual people come together physically – and in animal kingdom they don’t kiss, it’s just to impregnate the other person.
“It is quite an odd thing that we have come up with to express. It does feel great though, I mean I love being kissed, I love kissing people.”
Allen, who has two daughters, Ethel, 12, and Marnie, 11, with her first husband Sam Cooper, recently took a break from her podcast after going to a trauma clinic to help her process the split.
“I went into a treatment centre for a few weeks, which was great,” she told her co-host, when she returned earlier this month. “I did lots of group therapy and some like individual therapy.”
“I needed some time and space away from everything. And I did a lot of shadow work – lots of work about my inner child stuff.
“It wasn’t easy by any stretch. And it’s a journey, it’s a life long journey of healing. It’s not a quick fix.”