Apologies have been coming in thick and fast.
Joaquin Phoenix apologised to Letterman, Dee Snider apologised to Kelly Osbourne, and now Lily Allen has an old apology of her own.
Back in 2006, MySpace gave artists a fairly direct line to fans and, occasionally, a very public place to slag someone off before a publicist could stop them. Allen became particularly good at both.
I miss plenty about the MySpace era, but waking up and publicly calling a radio presenter a trollop probably isn’t one of them.
Allen called Edith Bowman a “trollop”, before mocking the DJ for constantly talking about being mates with indie bands in skinny jeans and stripey cardigans.
The post was even quoted in a contemporary Observer profile of Allen, which gives you some idea of just how much mileage a spicy MySpace blog could get back then.
Bowman actually confronted Allen about the post not long after it happened, during an interview at T in the Park.
According to Bowman, she simply asked Allen what she’d done to offend her. Allen reportedly admitted she had been sitting around listening to Radio 1, waiting for them to play her record, got frustrated and lashed out.
Which is perhaps the most honest explanation possible.
Allen was 21 at the time, newly famous and becoming almost as well known for saying whatever came into her head as she was for songs like ‘Smile’.
She certainly wasn’t short on targets during that period, with everyone from musicians to broadcasters finding themselves on the receiving end of one of her posts.
Now, two decades later, Allen has admitted there really wasn’t much behind it.
Asked by Perfect magazine who she would apologise to, Allen replied: “I called Edith Bowman a trollop in one of my very early MySpace posts” before admitting there was absolutely no reason for it and offering an apology.
Twenty years later, I guess it’s better late than never.
