award for legendary crooner Tony Bennett, John remarked on Bennett’s age (he’s 82), to which she responded, “I’ll still fuck him.”

And so today, Allen is the thoughtful, stimu-lant-free homebody. In shorts, T-shirt, opaque black tights, and Christian Louboutin Gladiator heels, she’s all vampish glamour even when fixing a meal for a visitor.

“If staying in with Mabel and watching CSI is the price of killing off the ridiculous tabloid party-girl character that’s been created for me,” says Allen, “all well and good.”

 

SPIN: So this is your home. But also it seems a sort of bunker. This is where the new, nonpartying Lily is holed up? LILY ALLEN: Well, you make it sound like a prison, which it isn’t. It’s a very nice prison if it is. But I’ve reached a point where I feel I cannot go out and have a drink without being attacked in the press for it. I’ve decided I can stay at home. I sit here watching TV, while my friends, my mum and dad, and probably everyone working for me at the label are out enjoying a drink.

contrary to popular belief. I can talk to him about how I’m feeling. The song is saying, in spite of everything, I’m glad he’s still there. He’s quite preoccupied with his new two-year-old, which can be difficult. Even as a 23-year-old, you get…jealous.

 

Then there’s “Who’d Have Known.” My copy had your original spelling: “Who’d of Known.” I admit that part of me thought, “Did she misspell that on purpose? The grammar is terrible for someone who went to Hill House, the same school as Prince Charles.” People assume that because I went to Prince Charles’ old school for six months, I must be well educated. I went to 13 different schools between birth and 15, and I didn’t stay long enough to learn anything. On Wikipedia it says, “Lily enjoyed a privileged upbringing.” Surely I’m the only person who could say whether I actually enjoyed something. I moved because I didn’t fit in. I just kept thinking, “These people aren’t like the people I want to be like.” Anyway, the mistaken spelling was genuine. I spotted it and it’s been changed.

men the impression that what they are doing is sufficient, which, quite frankly, it isn’t.

 

But we can tell. If it’s all melodramatic barnyard noises, we can tell.

Shut up! What are you fucking like? You can’t tell.

 

Okay, but all other things being equal, you will dump a guy if you don’t climax? Yes. I’m not saying that’s right. But I’m not going to suffer with a man who doesn’t care about giving me pleasure.

 

A 23-year-old woman open about wanting sex, drugs, alcohol—do you think that’s why you are a tabloid target? Women have been wanting sex for millennia— it’s just that men never noticed. As for drugs, it annoys me that people think it’s the worst thing in the world compared with, say, not paying your taxes. If you don’t pay tax, you may be stealing from someone who needs an operation. As for me and drugs or alcohol: No thanks, I’m abstaining for a while.

 

“I DIDN’T REALIZE WHAT FAMOUS WAS.

I THOUGHT FAME JUST MEANT ‘EVERYONE WILL LOVE ME.’”

You sound like you’re trying to rebuild bridges on the new album. Who are you saying sorry to on “Back to the Start”? The song is about me and my sister [Sarah]. We haven’t always got on very well. We’re at the stage where we carry on the nightmare or solve it. She’s 29, very beautiful and charismatic and social, which is something I envied. She is tall and thin and had lots of friends, and I wasn’t and didn’t. She knows the song is about her, and it’s fine. She comes and stays now. I lend her my clothes. The battle is over.

 

And then on “He Wasn’t There,” you’re taking your dad to task. Yes. I was angry with my dad for a long, long time. Well, actually, just upset. I’m not now. I love him to pieces now.

 

That line: “You wouldn’t believe some of the things he did.” Like what? When he was skint [broke], he’d have me and my brother [actor Alfie Owen-Allen] for the weekend, and he’d get us to steal my mum’s saucepans, and we’d sell them at Portobello Market. I discussed it with my mum a few months ago, and she thought he was stealing them for his flat, when actually he was stealing them for food money.

 

He tells the story of taking you to the Glastonbury Festival at eight months old to sell amyl nitrate and beer. I was a cute baby, which brought in a few customers, I suppose. He’s quite clever and intelligent,

You also attended Bedales with the children of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and David Gilmour. Didn’t you fit in there? There’s a big difference between London Calling and “Vindaloo.” It was Pink Floyd’s kids and the Clash’s kids. Joe wasn’t my godfather then. Bless my mum’s soul, she worked very hard to pay for us to go because she thought that it would get her accepted amongst peers in the film industry. She couldn’t really afford it. I felt out of place. I don’t want to sound spoiled, because my life wasn’t hard, but kids would show off their new stuff every week—a new dress or trainers or whatever. We’d get picked up in a chugging VW Golf, and everyone else was in a Bentley. I don’t care now, but at the time, it made me feel judged. Those places aren’t really about education; they’re about status.

 

But, as a kid, didn’t you perform with Joe Strummer? Surely that made you feel accepted. I sang with him once at Wembley [Arena] when I was 14 or 15. It was when he was with the Mescaleros. They were supportingthe Who, and I sang “White Riot” and “I Fought the Law” with them. I didn’t like the Who fans—they all wore mismatched denim outfits. To a 15-year- old, they all looked desperately uncool.

 

On “It’s Not Fair,” you find a caring, sharing guy, but he doesn’t make you climax, so you dump him. I think the orgasm problem is as much women’s fault as men’s. We fake orgasms, which gives

There’s being liberal about drugs. And then there’s Amy Winehouse. Ever think, “That could be me?” No. But I know the script. Tabloids want me to be this young woman who loses it and falls into drink or drugs: “Look, she’s out of control.” I won’t do it. You know what, I could become a nun. At Catholic school, I never got it at all. But being a nun now makes total sense. I wouldn’t do it for Jesus—I would do it to see tabloid gossip people have zero to write about. “She prays all fucking day—what are we going to do now?”

CLARIDGE’S, IN LONDON’S Mayfair district, is one of the city’s most historic and exclusive hotels, beloved of royals and dignitaries and Lily Allen. On arrival, staffers make a discreet floor-to-eye-level inspection of your clothes. Accents are so clipped in the Reading Room restaurant, where Allen has booked a table two weeks after our last meeting, I find myself checking that I’m not interrupting the filming of a period drama.

I’m surprised this is Allen’s favorite home away from home. She says she has a noisy upstairs neighbor, and so sometimes she’ll decamp here. Last night she was up until the wee hours filming a video for her single “The Fear,” in Luton, 32 miles outside London. When she arrived back at the hotel, the concierge gravely intoned, “Welcome home, Ms. Allen,” which she admits is “brilliant” but also slightly ridiculous. More disconcerting still, there were armed security personnel sweeping the place. That’s

BECOME BE T TER LOOKING, VISI T SPIN.COM / FEBRUAR Y 2009 45