Lily Allen has namechecked BBC Radio presenter Edith Bowman as the person she’d like to apologise to, after calling her a cruel name back in 2006. The British pop star gave an interview to Perfect magazine in which she recalled a time she branded Bowman a “trollop” in a post to MySpace. In the offending post, Allen complained about hearing Bowman on the radio “warbling on about how she is just BESTEST friends with just about anyone, so long as they are in a band and preferably wearing skinny jeans and stripey cardigans, and how the Magic Numbers are just absolutely brilliant, AGAIN”.
Bowman later found out about Allen’s post and called her out for it during an interview at T in the Park festival. I went up and said, ‘Hello, what’s the problem? What have I done to offend you?” Allen apparently apologised then, too: “She just kind of said, ‘I’m the type of person who speaks before I think and I was sat there every day listening to Radio 1 and waiting for you to play my record and I just lashed out.
I am sorry.’” Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. The “Beg for Me” star’s close friend Miquita Oliver recently gave her own mea culpa for similar comments she made about Bowman’s fellow BBC Radio presenter Fearne Cotton.
The Miss Me? co-host spoke about her regret over calling Cotton a “she-devil” back in 2005 on a recent episode of her podcast with Rizzle Kicks star Jordan Stephens. At the time, Oliver was known for hosting Channel 4’s Popworld as well as T4, while Cotton fronted popular shows such as Top of the Pops and on Radio 1, having started out as a children’s television presenter. In 2005, Oliver was sacked from her BBC Radio 1 gig after being asked by NME how she would improve Top of the Pops, to which she responded: “Get rid of the she-devil Fearne Cotton.” During the episode, Oliver recounted how she had been treated by the press during her television career, revealing that media outlets frequently compared her negatively to other female presenters, using insults such as “fat” and “dirty”.
Cotton apparently then reached out to tell Oliver that her comments had resonated with her and that she had gone through similar experiences: “Having awful things written nearly took me down completely and I’m still trying to overcome the aftermath today.” Allen is currently preparing for the North American leg of her critically adored West End Girl tour, starting with a night at Madison Square Garden in New York City before dates in cities including Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles. She will then continue the tour in New Zealand and Australia, with the final date of the tour taking place on 1 November in Perth. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Extract — continue reading at the source.
