Lily Allen Fans Told Us The Most Shameless Thing They've Ever Done
All photography by the author

FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Lily Allen Fans Told Us The Most Shameless Thing They've Ever Done

'No Shame' is out now, so we used this opportunity to speak about sex and vomit and more sex.

If you’re a human, chances are you’ve done something that has filled you with shame. Eaten nothing but Coco Pops for a week because you spent your student loan on Bet35 accys? Got a tattoo of a bike on your ass in Maga because “everyone likes to take a ride on me”? Devoured a three person portion of fried chicken only to gaze down, deflated, at their little decimated corpses of wiggling purple veins and naked bones. Shame is cumming halfway through a porn video and watching the remaining two minutes in abject horror, the flesh hitting flesh, the shrieking actress, the clinical lighting – shut the laptop screen, just shut it.

Advertisement

Shame makes your tummy wobble like there are ants crawling up the walls of your insides. It keeps you up at night furiously relaying the terrible things you’ve said and done, it makes you stress eat Pringles and cry at Kate Bush’s “A Woman’s Work”. Sometimes the shame goes so deep you want someone to cut you hair off with rusty scissors and march you through the streets naked, a town crier ringing a bell and yelling “SHAME! SHAME!” as locals lob mouldy cabbages at you. Or maybe that's just me.

Either way, to make myself feel better about my failings, I approached Lily Allen fans who were queuing outside Rough Trade to see her perform new album No Shame. I wanted to know about the most shameless thing they’ve ever done, because if one woman knows how to stick a middle finger up to shame itself, it is Lily Allen – and by extension her fans. Remember that time she was carried out by security semi-conscious from The Glamour awards after accidentally snorting a line of ket? No shame, no shame whatsoever – so much so that she recently tweeted about the incident. Anyway, here we go:

JAMES, 22, AND FABIO, 23

Noisey: What’s the most shameless thing you have ever done?
James: This one time, I had sex on the sofa when my friend was asleep in the bed next to me. I was so hammered I had no recollection of it happening. When I woke up in the morning the guy had gone. My friend was fuming but I didn’t even know it happened. Does that make me innocent?
Fabio: No.
James: Another time I was on the tube hungover on the way to work and I needed to be sick. All I had was a bag of ready salted crisps, so I had to open it up and throw up onto the crisps. It was filling up and spilling over, everyone was staring at me and I just held it like a clutch bag, owned it and went to work.

Advertisement

MATTHEW, 19

Noisey: What’s the most shameless thing you have ever done?
Matthew: My friend had a house party and me and this guy went upstairs and… we… yanno… in his bed.

You had sex in your mate’s bed?
Matthew: It wasn’t quite sex, but still not my finest moment.
Someone from further down the queue: That’s fine. Was there vomit? – No bother.
Matthew: He wasn’t…

Are you too polite to say you didn’t fancy the guy? You are too pure for this world.

SEBASTIAN, 22, AND JONAS, 22

Noisey: What’s the most shameless thing you have ever done?
Sebastian: I had sex in a bush outside a nightclub in Copenhagen.

Was there good coverage?
Sebastian: Certainly not. I was quite out in the elements. I actually thought he was spanking me but it was just mosquitoes biting my ass.
Jonas: Mine is also probably outdoor sex, I slept with someone in a forest outside my house.

That almost sounds romantic though. I’m imagining leaves and bluebells, like something off The Notebook.
Sebastian: I had sex in a forest but mine wasn’t romantic because loads of people were filming it. It was a graduation party when I was 18 and it was going well until me and this guy look up and see about 10 cameras and all our mates watching.

Jeez.

JONNY, 51

Noisey: Can you tell me something not involving sex/vomit which is the most shameless thing you’ve ever done?
Jonny: When I was younger my mum pissed me off, so I put needles in the sofa and watched laughing as she sat on them and got three needles up her bum. She slapped me. It was in the old days where you were allowed to do that, before things were so politically correct.

Advertisement

Okay then… So you like Lily Allen?
I do, I’ve liked her since 2006. I remember cause I’d just got my first internet connection and someone told me to listen to her and the Arctic Monkeys and I loved it. She managed to get “Tesco’s” and “alfrescos” into a song. That’s even better than when Paul Weller sang about the Co-op supermarket.

What do you think the most shameless thing Lily Allen’s ever done is?
According to the papers, shag Liam Gallagher. Why? She could have shagged me. I am a much better singer.

BARNEY, 25

Noisey: What’s the most shameless thing you have ever done?
Barney: Last year I was in San Francisco on this Grindr date and we were getting an Uber back to my place and I ended up throwing up down the side of the car. The driver kicked us out and we got into another Uber, then I actually managed to throw up again in that one. We were like properly tonguing and making out as well. I did use mouthwash beforehand though.

Gross!
Also… when I was at university I went through a stealing phase, taking blocks of cheese for sustenance. My parents found out because my sister dobbed me in.

MATTHEW, 24

Noisey: What’s the most shameless thing you’ve ever done?
Matthew: After a night out I went back to someone’s house and when they left the room I just grabbed my shit and left. I just wasn’t into it. I wanted to go home, eat some chicken nuggets and watch TV for a couple of hours. I think the wine wore off.

Advertisement

LETICIA, 23

Noisey: What’s the most shameless thing you have ever done?
Leticia: I slept hugging a toilet. It was a clean toilet though.

That’s not too bad. We’ve all been there. What do you like about Lily Allen?
She is so real and unpretentious.

What is your favourite song on the new album?
Everything To Feel Something” because it is so dark, it really resonates with me, especially when she says “I don’t know why I do it to myself” and “giving all my worth to someone else”. It is so powerful.

NED, 18

Noisey: What’s the most shameless thing you have ever done?
Ned: I had sex in an alleyway. It wasn’t very classy. We then walked together for about fifteen minutes in silence until we went our separate ways. I was freaking out because I saw a security camera and I was worried I would become one of those people on a video in The Sun, “randy couple caught bonking in an alley”.

That would be very Lily Allen of you. She’s always getting targeted in the press.
Yeah. The Sun and The Daily Mail, they always attack her in such a disgusting manner. It’s fine to disagree with someone, but you have to actually let them express their opinion, rather than shouting down every outspoken woman in the music industry. When people abuse her on Twitter, she’s not actually done anything wrong except express her opinion.

How do you feel about the new album?
I still like Alright, Still and It’s Not Me, It’s You but No Shame sounds like a more cohesive piece of work. I feel like her label could have done more to promote the album. But I am doing my bit [shows the massive picture of Lily Allen on the back of his t-shirt].

You can follow Annie on Twitter.