Lily Allen added a brand new wrinkle to the Madeline mythology throughout her look on Saturday Evening Reside.
When Allen, 40, carried out “Madeline” as her second music on SNL on Saturday, December 13, she was joined on stage by Fifty Shades of Gray star Dakota Johnson. Johnson’s identification was hidden by curtains all through a lot of the efficiency, as Allen sang about having “an association” with a major different.
“Be discreet and don’t be blatant / And there needed to be fee,” Allen sang. “It needed to be with strangers / However you’re not a stranger, Madeline.”
Johnson narrated Madeline’s response through a textual content: “I hate that you just’re in a lot ache proper now. I actually don’t wanna be the reason for any upset. He instructed me that you just had been conscious this was happening and that he had your full consent. If he’s mendacity about that, then please let me know. As a result of I’ve my very own emotions about dishonesty.”
“Lies usually are not one thing that I wanna get caught up in. You possibly can attain out to me any time, by the way in which,” Johnson learn. “Should you want any extra particulars otherwise you simply have to vent or something. Love and lightweight, Madeline.”
Johnson stepped out on stage to kiss Allen on the cheek on the conclusion of the efficiency.
Allen was married to Stranger Issues actor David Harbour from 2020 to 2024 and subsequently chronicled their separation on her fifth studio album West Finish Woman, which was launched in October.
“I made this document in December 2024, and it was a method for me to course of what was taking place in my life,” Allen instructed British Vogue that very same month. “There are issues which can be on the document that I skilled inside my marriage, however that’s to not say that it’s all gospel. It’s impressed by what went on within the relationship [and] confusion, sorrow, grief [and] helplessness.”
There was infinite hypothesis about repeated references to Allen’s unnamed romantic associate having an affair with a lady named “Madeline” on West Finish Woman.
“So I learn your textual content, and now I remorse it / I can’t get my head spherical the way you’ve been taking part in tennis,” Allen sings within the “Tennis” refrain. “If it was simply intercourse, I wouldn’t be jealous / You gained’t play with me and who’s Madeline?”
On the monitor “Madeline,” Allen writes about confronting the opposite girl: “I do know none of that is your fault / Messaging you feels sort of assaultive / Noticed your textual content, that’s how I discovered / Inform me the reality and his motives.”
Lily Allen in December 2025. Gareth Cattermole/Getty Pictures for BFC
Allen instructed London’s The Occasions that Madeline is “a fictional character,” or, extra precisely, a assemble of a number of folks.
“I simply really feel we live in actually attention-grabbing occasions — when it comes to how we outline intimacy and monogamy, folks being disposable or not,” she defined. “The best way we’re being intimate with one another is altering as people. A lot of younger ladies usually are not discovering the thought of marriage or perhaps a long-term relationship that engaging any extra.”
Allen continued, “I don’t know [that] it’s essentially dangerous. A lot of folks from my dad and mom’ technology stayed collectively endlessly and had been depressing. You didn’t have infinite alternative so you might have labored at one thing tougher. However now you don’t should.”
Harbour, 50, has but to touch upon his separation from Allen, apart from making a short assertion to GQ in April.
“I’m protecting of the folks and the fact of my life,” he stated. “There’s no use in that type of partaking [with rumors] as a result of it’s all primarily based on hysterical hyperbole.”
Whereas not addressing his separation instantly, Harbour later instructed Esquire UK that he was hopeful of discovering “love” once more.
“There’s private stuff that I wish to do, and folks that I wish to love, and be good to and nurture, issues like that,” he stated in November.
Allen’s look on Saturday Evening Reside this week was her return to the present after an 18-year hole. She beforehand carried out on the sketch comedy present in February 2007.
Saturday Evening Reside airs its vacation present December 20 on NBC at 11:30 p.m ET with host Ariana Grande and musical visitor Cher.
