The Guardian: Lily Allen has given her first detailed account of a record industry executive sexually assaulting her as she slept, warning that similar abuse is “rife” in the music business.
In a frank interview with Guardian Weekend magazine, the Brit Award winner warns that, even in the wake of the #MeToo movement, industry insiders remain silent about the scale of the problem.
Describing a hierarchical world that “allows and sometimes even endorses toxic behaviour by men towards women”, Allen details an industry which trades in “a potent mix of sex, youth and availability” in her memoir My Thoughts Exactly, published later this month.
The 33-year-old, who has previously discussed in general terms an incident where a powerful industry figure abused her, recounts the details of her experience with a record industry executive who assaulted her after she had fallen asleep in his hotel bed. She says the man – whom she wanted to name in the book but did not after legal advice from her publisher – settled her in his own hotel room after she had got “smashed” at a party, and left her to sleep it off. Then, Allen alleges, “I woke up at 5am because I could feel someone next to me pressing their naked body against my back. I was naked, too. I could feel someone trying to put their penis inside my vagina and slapping my arse as if I were a stripper in a club. I moved away as quickly as possible and jumped out of the bed, full of alarm … I found my clothes quickly … and ran out of his room and into my own.”
Allen, whose latest album, No Shame, has been nominated for the Mercury prize, says she blamed herself for the assault because she had been drinking.
Our time is a news portal