BACK WITH AVENGEANCE

Her album West End Girl took the world by storm in 2025 and this year is set to belong to Lily Allen.

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As one of the most feted shows on American television, Saturday Night Live is not for the faint-hearted.

Many celebrities want to appear on it but few are chosen. So when Lily Allen rounded off 2025 by following in the footsteps of Beyoncé and Adele with a live performance, suffice to say her year ended on a high.

Wearing a black corset dress, Lily was joined on stage by the actress Dakota Johnson for a memorable performance of Madeline, a song about messaging a woman with whom her partner has been cheating.

If 2026 will belong to anyone, it’s Lily, a woman who gives new meaning to the cliche that life begins at 40 (she entered her fifth decade last May). With a career spanning nearly two decades, she’s not just “back”. She’s back with a vengeance - quite literally, given the content of her bestselling album.

During an extended hiatus from singing she became sober, abstaining from alcohol and drugs since July 2019. But on 24 October she released West End Girl, her first new music in seven years, with just a few days' notice. It is a deeply personal record that immediately became one of the most talked-about releases of the year, if not the decade.

The title referenced her successful acting career - she was nominated for an Olivier for her lead role in the play 2:22: A Ghost Story (2021), and received positive reviews in the West End play The Pillowman (2023), as well as for the TV show Dreamland (2023).

Where Princess Diana had a revenge dress, Lily served up a revenge album: 14 songs detailing with searing honesty the emotional fallout of her separation from the Stranger Things actor David Harbour.