Lily Allen is speaking to the benefits of her recent stay at a treatment center, as she says she is now in a “stronger place” following a time of “emotional turmoil.”
The “Smile” singer — who recently separated from husband David Harbour after four years of marriage, multiple sources told PEOPLE — addressed her mental health on her return to her BBC podcast Miss Me?, which aired on Thursday, Feb. 13.
“I just feel very grateful to have been given the time and the space that I needed. I went into a sort of treatment center for a few weeks, which was great,” Allen, 39, said. “I did a lot of group therapy and some individual therapy and I just, I needed some time and space away from everything.”
The star said she did a lot of shadow work about her “inner child stuff” while in treatment, and while it “was not easy by any stretch,” she knows healing is a “lifelong journey.”
Allen and Harbour, 49, married in 2020, and a source recently told PEOPLE she was “devastated” by the split, which was “been very hard for her and her girls.” The singer is mom to daughters Marnie Rose, 12, and Ethel Mary, 13, whom she shares with ex-husband Sam Cooper.
On the podcast, Allen said people often think that she “hate[s]” her children, which she does not. She explained that her decision to seek treatment was with them in mind.
“I absolutely adore my children and I’m in a situation now where I really have to be my strongest self for them. And I felt like it was getting harder and harder for me to be able to show up for them in the way that they need me to,” she said. “It was a really big decision to have to leave them for a few weeks to go and focus on myself, but ultimately it was for them. Yes, it’s for me, but it’s for them so that I can get us through this bit. I needed some help to be able to do that.”
Allen added that she never wanted her daughters to feel as though they have to “prop me up,” as none of her struggles are their fault, and it’s her job to make them “feel safe and secure.”
“I just don’t think I was able to do that because of the sort of emotional turmoil that I was in at the time,” she said. “But I do feel like I am now. I‘m not saying I’m 100% there and I’m not saying that I’m getting it 100% right or ever will but I’m definitely in a stronger place.”
She previously said on her podcast in January that she and her daughters “are a support network for each other” amid a “tough” time.
It remains unclear just what sort of treatment center the star was at and when, but she said she was at the facility when the Los Angeles fires broke out on Jan. 7, and ultimately wound up in the city a week later for work on a new musical.
Allen also revealed that she’s had issues with her medication over the last year, and feels as though that was “a big part of where things became unmanageable” for her. She said one antidepressant “really did not work for me,” but thinks she is “on the right track 1739513582.”
Allen and Stranger Things star Harbour were married in Las Vegas after meeting on the celebrity dating app Raya. She previously alluded to a “tough time” on her podcast, which she said was affecting her mental health and causing her problems with her eating.
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