Why Lily Allen Says Meghan Markle Should Be Woman of the Year

Singer Lily Allen said Meghan Markle was her "woman of the year" after a rocky 12 months for the Duchess of Sussex's U.S. popularity.

Meghan and Prince Harry released their Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan, in December 2022, which was criticized in the U.S. media as well as the British press.

They had a very public dispute with the paparazzi following an awards gala in May and their Spotify deal collapsed in June.

And American public opinion swung against them in January, though it has partially recovered since.

Despite all that, Meghan was the woman of the year according to Allen, who broke through as a singer with hit single Smile in the 2000s and whose party lifestyle triggered many a tabloid headline in the years that followed.

Allen, who is now sober and married to Stranger Things star David Harbour, was at a Glamour magazine awards ceremony when she said: "Who's my woman of the year? Umm, Meghan Markle. She just is one big middle finger to the British press in particular."

It came after the singer was given the GLAMOUR Women of the Year Award for Theatre Actor, during a ceremony at One Marylebone on October 17, 2023.

Much of Meghan's 2023 has been spent in the background and past years have seen far greater conflict with U.K. newspapers.

However, it may be that Allen's off-the-cuff remarks were more a product of what she feels Meghan stands for in general rather than a full audit of the duchess' previous 12 months.

And as far as the British media goes, Allen has plenty of her own past experiences to tap into when rooting for Meghan.

Meghan and the Media

The duchess had her ups and downs with the British media in the early years of her royal life but since the end of 2018 the highs have been few and far between.

In October 2019, she sued The Mail on Sunday for publishing a private letter she sent her father Thomas Markle and ultimately won the case in December 2021.

However, the experience was grueling to the point that Harry speculated it may have been the cause of a miscarriage she experienced in July 2020, though medical experts lean away from stress as a cause of pregnancy loss.

In the couple's December 2022 Netflix documentary, he said: "I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what The Mail did. I watched the whole thing.

"Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was created, caused by that? Course we don't. But bearing in mind the stress that that caused, the lack of sleep, and the timing of the pregnancy, how many weeks in she was, I can say from what I saw... that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her."

In May 2023, the couple took aim at the New York paparazzi for what their spokesperson described as a "near catastrophic" two-hour car chase.

Photographers initially sold their images in both Britain and America but, after the Sussexes' statement, U.K. outlets pulled the pictures.

U.S. website TMZ stood its ground and kept video footage of the incident online.

Lily Allen and the Media

At the height of her fame, Lily Allen was regularly in the tabloid press in Britain and past scandals ranged from the political to the personal.

She was nicknamed "Silly Allen" by The Sun after taking an anti-Brexit stance and following a high-profile debate about her visit to Calais to meet migrants seeking a new life in Britain.

At "The Jungle," a refugee and immigration camp in France, she met a man who fled Afghanistan for fear of being killed by the Taliban and said: "I apologise on behalf of my country."

Her remarks triggered a backlash among the tabloids and she later wrote in her memoir, My Thoughts Exactly: "I wanted to say, 'I'm sorry,' and I wanted to acknowledge that I was part of the problem, and that we are all part of the problem if we don't do more to help. The words came out badly, and for that I felt foolish."

Elsewhere, she was under scrutiny for her relationship with alcohol and has in part blamed "relentless bullying" in the British media.

In July, Allen accused Dan Wootton, a former showbiz editor at The Sun, of putting her under "constant surveillance." At the time, Wootton was facing allegations of online catfishing which have been referred to London's Metropolitan Police by a newspaper. Wootton denied the allegations and said he had been the target of a smear campaign.

"Whilst i'm able to take responsibility for my own actions," she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, "i can hand on heart say that a big part of the reason i would get myself into these states was because of the relentless bullying and constant surveillance and scrutiny this man had me under.

"FOR NO REASON. Anyway, karmas a b****. I couldn't be happier at this time in my life. absolutely thriving."

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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