Lily Allen

Illustration: Rob Kelly

Even if you’re one of the three people on earth who aren’t aware of Lily Allen’s breakout hit, the hear-it-once-and-you’re-smitten “Smile,” chances are you still know something about this brash, outspoken star. At the wee age of 22, the London native and daughter of British actor-comedian Keith Allen has positioned herself as an anti–Jessica Simpson—a smart, honest young artist who’s not afraid to admit that she wears dresses onstage to cover up her “chunky” thighs. Unfortunately, that frank attitude, not to mention Allen’s sizable and uncensored mouth, have made her a bad-girl omnipresence in the British tabloids, and the rep is obviously taking its toll. She had to reschedule U.S. tour dates because she was tired and nervous that she hadn’t been giving good performances. When TONY caught up with her by phone one Sunday afternoon while she was in Seattle (the tour promoting her debut album, Alright, Still, hits Roseland on June 12), a dispirited Allen had just posted on her MySpace page how she’d “spent the last hour researching gastric bypass surgery and laser liposuction.”

Are you surprised by your success in the States?

Yeah, sure. It’s a massive surprise. But I don’t know if it’s really true. Is it?

Of course it is.

Okay. I guess I don’t know what making a dent means anymore. Everyone just wants more. People just want to push you harder. I always feel like I’m not doing well enough.

You’re very hard on yourself. You’ve said that your thighs are “chunky.” Do you still think that?

Yeah, I do. I just had a long conversation about it with my boyfriend [British DJ Seb Chew] this morning. I was crying a lot, and wrote a blog about it.

I just saw that on MySpace…

It’s sad. A couple of years ago, I was very happy with the way I looked. And now, I’m not so happy. People are constantly making comparisons, saying I’m not as beautiful as Kate Moss, or as thin as Amy Winehouse.

But listening to your songs, like “Everything Is Wonderful,” it’s hard to imagine you care about stuff like that.

It never mattered to me before. But when you’re constantly followed by photographers and you see pictures that highlight the bigger parts of your body, it has an effect.

C’mon, you’re only 22—gastric bypass is a little extreme, no?

I think so, yeah. [Laughs] Sometimes I have problems with addiction. When I feel sad, I eat a lot. And at the moment, I just want to shove food in my mouth. [Laughs]

What brought this mood swing on?

I beat myself up a lot. When I first released this album, people were incredibly supportive, and thought it was this really great, new breath of fresh air. But that sort of goes, and people start to get sick of you. Then you feel like shit.

Your New Year’s resolution was to quit drinking. How’s that going?

Not particularly well. I fell off in late January. But I haven’t had a drink in a few weeks.

No small feat when you’re on tour.

When you walk into your dressing room every night and there are 40 beers there, it’s difficult to not drink them all, you know? Like I said, I have a very addictive personality, and alcohol leads to other things. I don’t want to end up hanging over a toilet seat snorting coke when I’m 50.

But you dealt Ecstasy in Ibiza when you were 15…

It’s not like it was my job—I just sold it to friends. It’s cheaper when you buy it in bulk. [Laughs] It’s not really funny.

What do you make of critics who say you’re trying to be “street”?

It annoys me how people assume that, because your father’s been in a couple of movies, you must be a multi-multimillionaire. Well, (a) that’s not the case, and (b) my father left us when I was four. He definitely didn’t share his not particularly big bank account.

I heard you go for guys like Philip Seymour Hoffman.

[Laughs] I just meant, like, normal people.

You’re not turned on by Oscars?

Definitely not. I never really had pictures of movie stars on my walls. I just like people. Nice people.

Lily Allen’s album, Alright, Still, is out now. She plays Roseland Jun 12.