Smile: The Story of Lily Allen by Bella Wolfson

Author:Bella Wolfson [Wolfson, Bella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85712-463-0
Publisher: Omnibus Press
Published: 2010-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

‘She has a public persona that doesn’t do her justice.’

George Lamb

‘Love and hate’ was the theme of the 2007 Brit Awards, and this was nothing short of appropriate as far as Lily was concerned. Her ‘love/hate’ relationship with Amy Winehouse would be dragged into the spotlight, for one. As she hit the red carpet, looking cute in a green dress with yellow ribbons in her trailing black hair, she dutifully spoke to the reporters outside, attempting to put paid to the supposed ‘Amy versus Lily’ feud by saying that she hoped Amy would win. (She was up against Amy in both British Female and Best Album categories – and Amy would indeed pick up the Best Female gong. You have to be careful what you wish for.) Amy meanwhile returned the compliment by insisting that she believed that Lily would win. The mutual appreciation society wouldn’t last long.

Indeed, Lily had saved any barbs for her label-mate Corinne Bailey Rae, whom she branded “boring”, and admitted blankly that The Kooks would almost certainly beat her in the British Breakthrough Act category, which was voted for by the public (or rather, legions of young girls who fancied Luke Pritchard in this case).

“I think they’ll walk it,” she shrugged. “I hate being in competitions because I never win. When you get nominated it’s really nice, but at the same time I’m going to have to put on my, ‘Ooh, I’m really happy Corinne won,’ face, I know I am.’“ Neither Corinne nor Kooks would win (The Fratellis bagged the Breakthrough gong), but crucially, neither would Lily. Not winning competitions or awards was a big thing for her, she’d talk about it frequently in subsequent interviews and made no attempt to hide her disappointment. While these were all things other artists might have felt but tried to hide beneath a gleaming celebrity smile, Lily was nothing if not honest, heart very much pinned to sleeve.

Lily’s fellow caners Oasis performed on the Hate stage that night, and they whisked Lily off on a bender afterwards – Liam and Lily doing their best cartoon snarls to the cameras on their way to the Cuckoo Club in Mayfair to celebrate Oasis’ win of the Outstanding Achievement Award (they’re an excellent Beatles tribute band, it has to be said). The party was a very exclusive one: Noel Gallagher personally vetted everyone who wanted to get in – James Morrison, Badly Drawn Boy and even national treasure Suggs were turned away.

There were so many photographers surrounding the club that, when Lily emerged into the flash-bulb-pricked darkness, she couldn’t find her own car for ages. Police were called because of an impending crush, cars were getting scratched, Liam drew on a pap’s lens with a marker and Lily allegedly threatened a snapper with her stiletto. So, Brit or no Brit, guess who took up plenty of column inches the next day?

Amy Winehouse might have been crowned Best British Female, but Lily certainly had the last laugh: for the rest of the week the newspapers were ablaze with speculation on why she had been so royally snubbed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.