Allen and Amy Winehouse were credited with starting a process that led to the "year of the women" media label in 2009 that saw five female artists making music of "experimentalism and fearlessness" nominated for the Mercury Prize.

[25] In 2005, Allen was signed to Regal Recordings; they gave her £25,000 to produce an album, though they were unable to provide much support for it due to their preoccupation with other releases such as X&Y (Coldplay) and Demon Days (Gorillaz).

[30] During the festival she reunited two members of The Specials, an act that guitarist Lynval Golding claimed played a "massive part" in the group's 2009 reunion.

[46] Her appearance at the 2008 Glamour Awards also generated criticism, as she showed up intoxicated wearing a dress covered in decapitated Bambi figures, and had an on-stage, expletive-laced exchange with Elton John.

[29][51] An online game, Escape the Fear, was created by Matmi as part of the viral marketing campaign targeted at people unaware of Allen or the album.

The following month, she started writing songs for the musical version of Bridget Jones's Diary which was scheduled to open in London's West End in 2012.

The song, which also features Wiz Khalifa, was released in September 2011, and reached number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart,[71] making it Allen's first Top 10 single in the United States.

In February 2013, she performed live at a Paris fashion show produced by Mark Ronson in what she called her "mumback", and foreshadowed the release of a new album "inspired by her experiences of motherhood" by the end of 2013.

[77] In November 2013, Allen recorded a cover of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" for the John Lewis Christmas advert with a portion of the song's sales earnings donated to Save the Children's Philippine Typhoon Appeal campaign.

Allen responded that ethnicity was not a factor in hiring the dancers, and the video was a lighthearted satirical look at objectification of women in modern pop music.

On 13 January 2014, the song "Air Balloon" was premiered on BBC Radio 1 and was released on 2 March 2014, as the second single from Allen's third studio album Sheezus.

[87][88] Allen mentioned on the podcast News Roast that she is working on a new album, which will mainly deal with herself, her relationship with her children, the breakdown of her marriage, substance abuse, etc.

[95] An electropop album, No Shame takes influence from dancehall and reggae, and features confessional lyrics that discuss the breakdown of Allen's marriage and friendships, maternal guilt, substance abuse, along with social and political issues.

Upon release No Shame was met with generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised the album's mature lyrical content and themes, Allen's artistic evolution, the composition and production.

"[97] In the Glastonbury Festival 2022, Allen appeared during Olivia Rodrigo's set to perform "Fuck You", as a protest against the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that abortion was not protected by the Constitution of the United States.

[110][111] Joe Strummer, a close friend of Allen's father Keith, played mixtapes of Brazilian music and Jamaican reggae and ska when she was young.

[133][134][135] Guests included Mark Ronson, Joanna Page, James Corden, Lauren Laverne, Róisín Murphy, Louis Walsh, and Danny Dyer.

[141] Karl Lagerfeld, the head designer for Chanel, personally hired and photographed Allen for a campaign to promote a luxury line of handbags due to launch in September 2009.

[181][182] Allen had included details of these events in her book My Thoughts Exactly, and said that she made the Instagram post as the Daily Mail were planning to publish an article about it the following day.

In an interview for Lorraine, an ITV breakfast program, Allen mentions that she "used to sleep for days so that [she] didn't eat" and that her relationship with her body was "not great" in her 20s.

When asked about being influenced by the pressure of the music industry to "look a certain way in order to sell records," she replied that due to her defiant way of dealing with these unrealistic expectations, she was often criticized far more than the average musician.

[193] In January 2021, Allen gave an interview to discuss how she became addicted to the prescription drug Adderall in 2014 to lose weight before supporting Miley Cyrus on her Bangerz tour.

[199] After the British government's plans to implement a three-strikes policy for file sharing copyright infringement, Allen came out in support for disconnecting repeat offenders.

[200][201] Creating a blog titled "It's Not Alright" against file sharing, it subsequently came to light that she had copied text directly from the Techdirt website of an interview with 50 Cent, without attribution.

[207] In June 2016, Allen published several tweets and attended protests in support of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, after mass resignations from his cabinet and a leadership challenge.

[211] In November 2019, Allen declared during the 2019 UK general election campaign that the Labour Party manifesto was "the best I've ever seen"[212] and shared a picture of her polling card with the caption: "Tories OUT.

Her stalker, Alex Gray, first made contact with Allen in 2008 when he sent her a series of tweets, claiming he had written her song "The Fear", under the Twitter handle "@lilyallenisRIP".

Disparaging remarks about musicians such as Luke Pritchard of The Kooks, Bob Geldof,[219] Cheryl, Nicola Roberts,[220] Amy Winehouse,[221] Kylie Minogue[222] and Katy Perry[223] have all garnered minor press attention.

She later said that making fun of other pop stars was a result of a lack of confidence, saying "I felt like 'Oh God, I'm short, fat, ugly and I hate all these people who flaunt their beauty.

"[226] In May 2009, French football magazine So Foot published a fake interview in which Allen was quoted as making derogatory remarks about David and Victoria Beckham and Ashley and Cheryl Cole.