It all began, as most of Lily Allen’s controversies of late, with a glib comment on a podcast. More specifically, Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver’s podcast, Miss Me? And while it’s true that Allen has often claimed the defense of “these quotes were taken out of context” (like her assessment of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album—for which, to be fair, she did have the cojones to critique rather than blindly praise), there really wasn’t much to be taken out of context with her latest snafu.
The stage was set for the incident at the end of the podcast’s August 19th episode, “School of Lyf,” during which Allen and Oliver forewarned that the latter would be absent the following week (which was only just, considering Allen was absent for two episodes’ worth of the show, getting her husband, David Harbour, to sub in for her while she jetted off to British Columbia, one of many locales visited during her summer break). And then, as though to seal Allen’s fate of doom, Oliver said at the end of the episode, “Good luck next week, you’ll be great.” Foreshadowing indeed. For in the episode that followed (August 22nd’s “Duck, Duck, Pigeon”), Allen managed to do the exact opposite, biffing the whole show in Oliver’s absence by bringing up that she and “the girls” (her two children, Marnie and Ethel) were thinking of getting a new puppy and naming it Jude Bellingham. Choosing a footballer’s name for a puppy was how Allen brought up the subject in the first place, telling the guest co-host, Steve Jones (a former fellow presenter of Oliver’s for T4), that she and her husband don’t know the names of any sports players. And so it was that the topic of conversation leading to the mention of a new puppy potentially being named after the one sports player whose name she does know secured her ruin.
And yes, as she soon found out, the only thing worse (in terms of public backlash) than denouncing Beyoncé is flippantly denouncing a dog. This by mentioning that even before the thought of getting another new puppy, Allen had already tried her hand at adopting a rescue during the pandemic era. And, per her account, it ultimately failed because the dog ate her passport. Which also came up only by coincidence when Jones jokingly mentioned what a big commitment getting a dog with Harbour is, despite the two already being married. In response, Allen said, “You know what? We actually did adopt a dog together already, but then it ate my passport and so I took her back to the home.” Yes, it was said that nonchalantly, with a little chuckle at the end.
When PETA called out Allen for that chuckle (among other issues with her handling of the dog), Allen hit back with, “People laugh when they talk about painful things all the time, it’s quite normal.” And while, sure, that’s not untrue, the way Allen delivered the anecdote was utterly icy, as though it was just another “crazy story” to tell. More “fodder” for a podcast.
Jones, perhaps not wanting to go against his co-host’s “vibe,” answered with, “Ate your passport? That’s a hungry dog.” Of course, there was no mention of where the passports were being stored that might have made them a little too accessible to a new puppy with monster chewing predilections. In that regard, Allen also came across as entitled, as though the onus wasn’t at all on her to secure the passports in a place that would be inaccessible to a dog (e.g., a safe deposit box). Nonetheless, Allen blamed only the dog as she recounted, “[Mary] ate all three of our passports, and they had our visas in [them] and I cannot tell you how much money it cost me to get everything replaced [maybe because if she did say the amount out loud, it would sound ridiculous, as her money plus Harbour’s Marvel money equals no amount is that high] ‘cause it was in Covid, and so it was just an absolute logistical nightmare. And because my, the father of my children lives in England, I couldn’t get them back to see their dad for, like, four months, five months because this fucking dog had eaten the passports. And I just couldn’t look at her, I was like, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’”
Everything about the way she describes it sounds not only Cruella-esque (except that, nefarious purpose aside, Cruella actually wanted dogs), but, basically, like a minorly inconvenienced rich person’s viewpoint. Worse still, a rich person who doesn’t even know how to spend her money in a way that could easily have accommodated the dog staying in her home. What’s more, for someone of affluence, who can simply pay to have their problems solved, a passport being chewed is not “life-ruining” so much as inopportune. In point of fact, saying the dog ruined her life is a peak example of hyperbole. Rich white person’s hyperbole.
Even so, Allen perhaps sensed she ought to pad the anecdote with a better reason, adding, “She was also, like…passports weren’t the only thing she ate, she was a very badly behaved dog and I really tried very hard with her, but it just didn’t work out. And the passports was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.”
Jones then finally steered the conversation away from Lily Allen and dog ownership by asking her what last name she uses on her passport (in other words, if she ended up taking Harbour’s last name—the answer being: no). But the damage had been done. And of all the things Allen has said, this might be her most damning. The thing that revealed her to be the very type of person she claims not to be: a privileged nepo baby with no concept of how “rich white lady” she comes across. In letting the mask “slip,” as it were, Allen invoked the wrath of dog lovers the world over, with hundreds of comments flooding into her various tweets about the backlash, including, “This kind of didn’t seem like a people laugh when they’re sad situation though. It seems like you put it out there not expecting the kickback you’d get for saying it and now you’re trying to dig yourself out of a massive crater sized hole!,” “It wasn’t about the dog’s welfare though, was it? It was you screwing up and then blaming the dog. What happens if the replacement chews stuff? Do you have another home already lined up?” and “Narcissism run rampant. Lily can’t shut her mouth. She is an awful person. She’s enjoying this, @peta. Leave her be to go hang out with Lena Dunham.”
Because yes, PETA did put Allen on blast with their tweet, “As someone high profile with a platform, what you say matters. Laughing about this ‘f******’ dog being sent back sends a dangerous message. Every move is traumatic to a homeless dog who then can never expect this home is forever.” Allen then bit back sarcastically with, “Also thank you to @peta for adding fuel to the fire. Very responsible of you.” (It reeks of Lana Del Rey saying, “…thanks for the Karen comments tho. V helpful” when she had her own unique backlash in 2020.) Few were wont to let Allen pivot the blame for the backlash on PETA, with one user replying, “What added fuel to the fire was telling the story of returning your dog to the shelter whilst having a little giggle over it.”
Allen also attempted to paint the headlines about her comments as a “distortion” when, in fact, all the quotes from the podcast were featured in most of the ink spilled about it. It was only when she further detailed her issues with Mary on Twitter that she might have given better insight into her difficulties beyond mere passport chewing. Part of that explanation went as follows: “…she developed pretty severe separation anxiety and would act out in all manner of ways. She couldn’t be left alone for more than 10 mins, she had 3 long walks a day 2 by us and 1 with a local dog walker and several other dogs, we worked with the shelter that we rescued her from and they referred us to a behavioral specialist and a professional trainer, it was a volunteer from the shelter who would come and dog sit her when we were away, and after many months and much deliberation everyone was in agreement that our home wasn’t the best fit for Mary.” Emphasis on the word months, as in: Mary didn’t last very long at the Allen-Harbour abode. Which does make one wonder if, had she been given a little more time, there might have been a breakthrough.
In any case, if Allen thought the dog had “ruined her life” before this metaphorical flogging, she’s surely convinced of it now. As for the Miss Me? episodes that followed “Duck, Duck, Pigeon,” another one, “Rage Against the Washing Machine,” with Jones continuing to sub in for Oliver, aired sans Allen mentioning the rage against her. This was followed by a “best of” episode called, “The Queen of MySpace,” wherein Oliver explains of Allen’s absence, “Everyone’s had quite heady summers, including Lily and I. We’ve been all around the world and we’ve been bringing you Miss Me? from wherever we’ve been and I feel we’ve done a pretty good job. But Lily Allen has finally got to a part of Italy that is so deep and rural that there is no wi-fi.” In other words, Allen needed to retreat from the noise of her detractors post-puppygate. A luxury that, yes, a rich lady can enjoy—as much as she can enjoy effectively training and acclimating a difficult/needy rescue dog… That is, if she really wanted to.
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