Here is Lily Allen on the cover of the July issue of Glamour UK. It’s kind of meh, right? I’m not an enormous Lily Allen fan, but the girl can look very interesting and high-fashion when styled correctly. I guess they were going for “accessible.” I guess that works. Also, the slightly billowy blouse doesn’t do anything for those pregnancy rumors, although in The Daily Mirror’s extensive excerpts from Lily’s cover profile, Lily doesn’t confirm her pregnancy, but does say that she and her boyfriend are planning to have children “in the next year.” Lily also talks about her plans for the future, plans which don’t include making any more music… so why is she on the cover of a magazine pontificating about being private? Ugh, I want to like Lily, but I suspect she’s an a–hole.

She’s the wild child pop star who swore at Sir Elton John, branded Courtney Love a crazy old lady and sang about her own ­brother’s drug habit. But hard-living party girl Lily Allen says she has ditched her late-night takeaways and Jack Daniel’s for healthy meals and folic acid supplements. And she is even talking of leaving ­London to live in the country.

The reason? Lily – who suffered a miscarriage two years ago – is trying for a baby with her new lover Sam Cooper. “I plan to have children in the next year,” says the daughter of hell-raising actor Keith ­Allen.

The Brit-award-­winning star – who has notched up more than 19 million song downloads since hitting the big time four years ago – plans to put her career on hold.

“Because people have stopped buying music,” she says, “the only way to make money is to tour – and I’m not willing to do that with babies around. A part of the way I became who I became was because I was subjected to a certain lifestyle from an early age. My parents hung out with famous people, but we didn’t ­necessarily reap the same ­financial benefits. So there was a part of me thinking, ‘I wanna be like those people.’ And once I’d achieved it, it didn’t make me happy. So I don’t want to put my kids in that position. I’d rather set up businesses, put a roof over our heads, then move to the country to shelter them for a bit.”

Lily, 25, decided to quit the high life after finding love at last with builder Sam, 32. She says: “I’m the ­happiest I’ve ever been. Having Sam around gives me confidence and that I’ve got him to lean on, whereas before I felt really lonely. Like it was me fighting the rest of the world. I don’t feel like I’m fighting anyone any more. I feel pretty levelled out.”

“Today is a typical day. I’ll be home by six and I’ll make dinner for Sam, who’ll get back from watching football at nine. I cook something different every night. Tonight I’ll make chicken, lemon and ­coriander parcels. Then we’ll watch ­Newsnight and go to bed.”

Lily is undeniably keen to settle down with her new chap. She adds: “I’ve always been a homemaker. And now I’m with Sam and he’s a builder. I’m really excited about us building homes together. As for marriage, it’s his choice. But I’d like to think so. ­People say, ‘God, you’re so lame, you’ve got to live your life,’ and I’m like, ‘I’ve done going out and getting drunk. I’ve met someone I ­really, really like. We’re really happy together. Why would I even think about not being with him?’”

Happily, she seems to have her ­insecurities under control at last. Lily – who has ­famously battled with weight issues – is finally comfortable with her curves. And that is thanks, largely, to Sam. She says: “I was the skinniest I’ve ever been last year, but I was deeply unhappy. The image of beauty we’re sold is this edgy, high cheekbones thing and I feel I’m a more rounded person. I think, ‘I’m Lily and I feel happy with the way I look,’ but I don’t see myself as pretty – although Sam tells me every day I’m the most beautiful woman in the world!”

As she turns her back on pop stardom, Lily has made a start on setting up in business. She and sister Lucy have founded a vintage dress shop in Central London called Lucy In ­Disguise, which will open later this year. And she is also creating her own record label to sign, “bands that I think make really good music, who are all ­really nice people I respect.”

Lily has always enjoyed an uneasy ­relationship with fame. She has had ­infamous run-ins with Amy Winehouse, Kylie Minogue and Katy Perry and lashed out at I Kissed A Girl singer Perry last year after the US star compared herself to a “skinnier version of Lily Allen”. But Lily – who had her ­drunken, on-stage row with Sir Elton at the 2008 Glamour Awards – says: “I think at that time I felt it was unfair that Amy was winning everything and that boys got more of a look-in than girls, and I was very angry. But I was a lot younger. And this time round, when I did win lots of stuff, I was kind of over it.”

She admits the flak has hurt, saying: “If I’m upset with myself, that’s when I look at negative comments. It makes me go, ‘See, I am rubbish, fat and ugly and all these people are saying it.”

And she is adamant that we have seen the last of Lily Allen, the pop star. “I hope in a year’s time I’m not gonna be asked to awards and I won’t be nominated because I haven’t put anything out there. ­Hopefully I can fade into oblivion.”

[From The Daily Mirror]

She strikes me as a very insecure woman who has spent her life building a lifestyle of overcompensation. Maybe she’s finally letting some of that stuff go, and maybe it is better for her physical and mental health to walk away from her pop stardom and all of the traps she (and the world) have set up for her to feel insecure. I don’t know why I’m psychoanalyzing this chick, I barely care. It’s just that she’s been talking about taking a step back or leaving music and doing this or that, blah, blah, blah for a year. And she’s still talking about it in big public interviews. I guess I’m hoping she actually goes away for a while and all of this isn’t just some big for attention because she’s too lazy to make another album.

Glamour cover courtesy of CoverAwards. Lily and her boyfriend Sam Cooper on May 30, 2010, and at the Glamour Awards on June 8, 2010. Credit: Fame Pictures.