Open, ended: Allen lifts lid on the sexual chaos of non-monogamy
The Observer
|November 02, 2025
Singer's skewering of her actor husband has us hooked and asking: what the hell is happening in modern marriage and dating?
My name is Sophie Heawood and I am addicted to Lily Allen's new album. And I'm not alone - women across the country have spent a week devouring West End Girl, with its 14 catchy but devastating pop songs about the disintegration of Allen's marriage. Social media and WhatsApp groups are alight with discussion, sharing rage and heartache as they listen to Allen's lyrical revelations of how her ex-husband, the actor David Harbour, allegedly wanted their marriage to be "open", so he could sleep with other people, and the sexual chaos that ensued.
That it has become the most streamed album in the UK this week, and with its streaming figures doubling since release (when an album often peaks on day one), speaks to a cultural breakthrough moment.
But the album's success also rests on the fact that as well as being catchy, it tells the story of a crisis in modern relationships that our culture hasn't yet reckoned with: are we moving away from monogamy and into a more complex constellation of arrangements, honest or not?
"If it has to happen, baby, do you want to know?" the husband on the album asks his wife. "What a line," she sings in response, "what a fucking line."
If Halloween costumes are a measure of cultural cache, Allen is on fire. Released just days earlier, fans created party costumes as scenes and moments from the album: the cult internet star Amelia Dimoldenberg went to a party wearing a sheriff costume (a nod to Harbour's character in Stranger Things) while listening to Allen on her iPhone.
Elsewhere, people dressed as the husband with a Duane Reade bag full of condoms and sex toys - the "pussy palace" where Harbour allegedly met with other women; and his anonymous girlfriend, named by Allen as Madeline. The internet has been having its fun.
This story is from the November 02, 2025 edition of The Observer.
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