Lily Allen checks if former home is on sale ‘every day’ after ‘soul-destroying’ decision to sell

‘Smile’ singer was forced to sell dream home to pay tax bill after being sued by a former tour manager

Lily Allen has opened up about the “soul-destroying” decision to sell her dream home, admitting she still checks every day to see if it is up for sale.

The 38-year-old was forced to sell her £4.2m mansion in the Cotswolds in 2016, to pay off a large tax bill after she was sued by a former tour manager.

At the time, the singer was married to builder Sam Cooper, with whom she shares two children. The couple went on to divorce in 2018 with Allen remarrying Stranger Things star David Harbour in 2020 and moving to New York.

“I had a beautiful house, which was my house of dreams in the countryside,” Allen said on her Miss Me? podcast.

“I did it up so nice, and it was like my life project, I was very proud of it, it was the place where I was going to raise my children.”

Being a vocal proponent of higher taxes for the wealthy, Allen said she has “always been good with her tax”, despite her views having made her “unpopular in certain political circles”.

However, she explained she was forced to fork out more than £100,000 in 2014 after a former tour manager claimed she broke a contract, when an American company ran her comeback tour.

She had set aside money for her tax payment, but was unable to afford both the payout and the bill. Attempting to negotiate a repayment in instalments with HRMC, Allen came up unsuccessful.

Allen said she checks if her former home is on sale ‘every day’ (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

“I tried to work out a deal with HMRC in which I can pay them back in instalments. Which I would have been able to do, but they said no so, I had to put my house on the market.”

But despite moving to New York and living in a luxury Brooklyn townhouse with Harbour, the Cotswolds home she invested so much time and money in, is never far from her mind.

David Harbour (left) and with his wife Lily Allen (right) during their home tour for Architectural Digest (NBC/Architectural Digest/YouTube)

“It was absolutely soul-destroying, and a real lesson in life. You can think that you have everything all sorted out, and you just absolutely don’t,” she continued.

“You know a sad story, if that wasn’t sad enough, is that every day I still check the housing market to see if that house has come back on sale. I’d love to have that house back.”