Lily Allen stepped in it again last week when she admitted on her podcast that she’d given away the rescue puppy that she and husband David Harbour adopted during the pandemic. Lily was showing her guest, Welsh TV host Steve Jones, a picture of a dog that she and David were looking at adopting. Steve asks her if they’re ready for that commitment and she responds, “We did adopt a dog together already but then it ate my passport and so I took her back to the home.” She then went on to explain that the dog, named Mary, had eaten her and her two children’s passports and visas, which cost her a lot of money to replace and prevented her children from being able to visit their father in London for several months.
After the podcast aired, there was a pretty big backlash against Lily online. From what I saw, most people were calling her out for laughing about giving the dog back. Apparently, it didn’t stop there, though. Lily released a long statement via Twitter on Monday morning, pushing back on the way the story had been portrayed by the media, calling it “deliberately distorted.” She also shared that she’s received a lot of hateful messages, as well as “death threats” as a result of the coverage. The statement also explains and clarifies the entire situation and then begs people to stop reacting to every clickbaity thing they read.
Allen began with a quote from her Miss Me? podcast, on which she originally discussed giving up the adopted pet. “We tried very hard and for a very long time,” she said, “but the passports were the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
She continued in her statement, “This is the part of the podcast that the tabloids decided not to quote in their articles about me ‘dumping my puppy.’ People have been furiously reacting to a deliberately distorted cobbling together of quotes designed to make people angry and as a result, I’ve received some really abhorrent messages including death threats. Some of the most disgusting comments have been all over my social media channels, and I’m really not surprised because this is exactly what those articles are designed to do.”
“We rescued our puppy Mary from a shelter in NY and we loved her very much, but she developed pretty severe separation anxiety and would act out in all manner of ways,” Allen wrote in her statement. “She couldn’t be left alone for more than 10 mins. She had three long walks a day — two by us and one with a local dog walker and several other dogs. We worked with the shelter that we rescued her from and they referred us to a behavioral specialist and a professional trainer. It was a volunteer from the shelter who would come and dog-sit her when we were away, and after many months and much deliberation everyone was in agreement that our home wasn’t the best fit for Mary.”
Allen went on to say that she’s had rescue dogs “pretty consistently throughout” her life and had never been accused of mistreating an animal, so the past few days had been “very distressing.” She ended her statement with a plea for people to “stop acting on clickbait articles when you haven’t done your due diligence,” referencing the recent “racially driven xenophobic riots” in the U.K. that she said were spurred on by “distorted propaganda.”
“It’s just all so toxic and I know that we can do better,” she said.
I listened to the original clip of Lily telling the story about Mary. On one hand, if you just take the one sound bite, it does come across like she is being very flippant about getting rid of the dog. The passport context is there, but she says things like, “I just couldn’t look at her…I was like, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’” I understand how some people – without the “clickbait” titles – could get upset. Also, and this is just a general reminder, don’t keep important, hard-to-replace documents laying around when there are children, pets, or even guests around to potentially destroy them.
On the other hand, sometimes people and animals just don’t click because they’re not the right fit. Lily’s full explanation about using a behavioral specialist and professional trainer to help with Mary’s anxiety makes the whole situation make a lot more sense. I’m glad that she clarified that the puppy was rehomed within a day to people that she knew. Wherever Mary is now, I hope she’s living her best life, full of treats and cuddles.
Lily Allen's Dog Rehomed, Doing Well With New Family, Says Rescue Group | Click to read more 👇 https://t.co/eyqEKk4qN3
— TMZ (@TMZ) August 26, 2024
"We tried very hard and for a very long time but the passports were the straw that broke the camels back"
This is the part of the podcast that the tabloids decided not to quote in their articles about me "dumping my puppy"
People have been furiously reacting to a deliberately…
— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) August 25, 2024
Photos via Instagram and credit: celebrityphotos uk / Avalon
This is mostly on herself, because she chose to tell this in a casual jokey tone for her podcast instead of the way she tells it in her clarification. She thought it would make good content that way and so she distorted the sad tale by trying to make it funny. People are going to react to that tone.
I agree. She created the content. She used the dog as clickbait. I’m not sure why she thought a tale about giving away a dog was going to be funny or entertaining. And I call total BS on taking months to get new passports. Money definitely greases that wheel, and maybe take some responsibility for being the idiot who leaves passports out in the open.
I’m ordinary Josephine and got my passport within a month. Didn’t pay expedited service and am in the US with our legendary backlogs. Not sure if the Uk’s worse off. But it definitely looks like hyperbole for attention.
Lily brought this in herself. Why did she think giving back a ding would be a funny story? She should have kept it to herself
Saw this as clickbait on Instagram, and the comments section was vile. I know lily Allen can be an idiot who definitely rubs people up the wrong way, but this was so clearly edited to piss people off that i don’t blame her for addressing it. Death threats certainly weren’t necessary.
I feel bad for her but I also think celebrities need to stop sharing information about their lives that they know will be twisted by certain parts of the media. It’s not sensible. Not everything needs to be content for your podcast.
This exactly.
If her explanation is true, then it seems like the best for everyone. Problem is, she’s a known liar. She lied on brother, claiming she got him the role GOT. Lying on her dog seems like easy work.
Maybe it’s because I don’t know much about dogs, but it doesn’t make sense that Lily and a dog trainer and a behavioral specialist worked with the dog unsuccessfully for months and months, but then the dog was rehomed and happy in just one day.
Most rescue operations have a policy that the pet get returned to their organization if the pet is not a good fit. It happens. So this dog was rehomed within a day to another family after It don’t work out with Lilly Allen. And the update is that the dog is doing well as she found her forever home.
On another note, one of my saddest experiences as a child was when my parents gave a dog back to the shelter. It was an anxious dog that bit people and it wasn’t a good fit. I was too young to truly understand how my parents could give the dog back. We had too many children in the home to run the risk of injury.
Yes, I understand the policy, but the article says that the dog was rehomed in less than a day to people Lily knew. Maybe that was a super quick turnaround at the rescue, I don’t know. But, basically, I don’t understand Lily’s story as related. The photo shows a puppy. It seems to me that dog training should be the first thing one thinks about with a puppy, not a last resort. And I don’t get how months of work by specialists failed to help the dog, but one day in a new home and the dog is living its best life. Anxiety doesn’t go away just like that – there must have been something else going on from the family side of things, not just a problem with the dog.
I don’t care one way or the other about Lily and her dog issues. If she wants to rehome one dog and get another, that’s her business – it’s just that the story I’m reading here doesn’t make sense to me.
As I said below, it could be that the dog went to a home with other dogs. That can be the simplest cure for separation anxiety–give them a companion so they don’t feel abandoned/alone when you leave.
@Kitten – that makes sense. If that was the problem, one would think a behavioral specialist would have suggested it.
Dogs are different as are humans. Some do better as the only pet in a home and some do better with a companion animal. Some are good around children and some shouldn’t be around children. Some houses are quieter and more peaceful than others and nervous dogs will do better. Some dogs do better in limited space and some need yards or fields for running. Of course, if more people did research into breed characteristics before adopting it would be useful, but with mixed breeds of unknown origin in shelters that isn’t always possible.
When we rescued our dog a few years ago, we took her to get trained – it was a week long thing but I was having mobility issues at the time. I was in a wheelchair and we wanted to make sure she didn’t jump on me as I was transitioning to using my walker. When my husband dropped her off by himself, she was fine. Apparently when we both dropped her off, she experienced strong separation anxiety. The trainer explained that she loved us equally, but she worried about only me. We were given home training to do, which we did. Dogs are amazing. I have been out of wheelchair and no walker for two years now, but I still walk slowly. To this day, when my husband comes in, she JUMPS on him and gets the zooms. If I come in, she immediately lays down and thumps her tail and then safely walks beside me, slowly. I will go sit on the couch and THEN she jumps on me, haha. Anyway, it sounds like she shouldn’t have been so flippant, especially due to the overcrowding at shelters. Just because someone wants a dog doesn’t mean they should have a dog.
Yeah, that’s a good point also. Some people aren’t cut out to be dog owners.
Eh I recall reading/hearing about this and most of the comments seemed to be that some of the stories she was telling about the dog didn’t even make sense. She also seems like an exhausting person. I always forget about her until something pops up concerning some new thing she stuck her foot in the mouth about.
This is just one side of the story. I wonder what the rescue would say? People complain all the time about how difficult it is to adopt from a rescue and that they are so particular. Here’s a good example why.
Just a thought, instead of looking for a new dog to adopt, she should consider that her transatlantic lifestyle is not healthy for a pet. Of course the pet is getting separation anxiety if she and the family are repeatedly leaving to go to the UK! But somehow she makes it be the dog’s fault.
Even when I might think badly about the reason, I never shame people for dropping pets off at a shelter. Maybe some people could have tried harder and maybe some people shouldn’t have had a pet to begin with, but returning them or leaving them somewhere the pet can find care and the right home eventually is ALWAYS preferable to dumping a helpless pet on the side of the road or in the woods or neglecting or [sob] hurting them. If you’re not able or willing to care for an animal properly, then by all means please take it back! (and make a donation or prepay the adoption fee for the next person, just to launder your karma…)
Agree 100%
I can’t endorse this enough! We live on a ranch in central Texas and regularly find animals that have been dumped. A few months ago my husband found a mother dog and her entire litter that had been dumped. Thank heavens he found them because they were such perfect targets for coyotes. We worked with a local shelter to place all the puppies and kept two of them. Animals dumped in the country are such perfect targets for predators. If I could I would have my own animal sanctuary, but we can’t keep them all. But we now have 4 cats, 2 puppies, 2 emus, and a donkey that were all dumped. And we are getting ready to add another donkey who has been rescued from an abusive situation. It’s heartbreaking what people do to helpless animals.
Don’t think the people dumping these critters don’t know that. They decided unilaterally that the critter is better off daed than to have a fighting chance. I see it all the time even out here in Southern California. People will literally drive out to the desert and dump these poor animals. One of the many reasons I despise humans.
Well my bro and SIL recently got a new puppy after their beloved bull terrier passed away and she is PERFECT *except* she has major separation anxiety. And I mean EXTREME anxiety–if they leave her alone in the car for 10 minutes they come back to her having chewed through the seatbelt. They went to a neighbor’s house to watch the end of a baseball game, came back and the house was trashed and she had devoured a $200 backpack. Their solution was not to send her back to Texas but to get her another companion puppy. So now they have two bull terrier mixes both under 3 years old. Maybe Lily should have tried that? Or maybe Mary went to a home with other dogs and that’s why she’s happier and less anxious.
Very likely. My parents re-train dogs that have been neglected and/or abused and the pack of dogs at their home is a very important component of that.
My daughter and her hubby agreed to FOSTER a dog for the weekend. They felt so bad for her, they adopted her. BIG MISTAKE. They have done SO MUCH to try to make this dog OK for a family of four, but despite YEARS of training, patience, and kindness, the dog still occasionally pees in the house, destroys things, knocks children over, tries to get any food, etc. My son in law actually broke down recently saying he gives up; the dog will never let them have a normal life. He was ready to bring her back for rehoming – perhaps a farm – but he felt the kids would be sad, and also get the wrong message. So a wonderful family of 4 is impacted every day by this sweet but utterly destructive dog. No judgement, when you know the media DID edit out some comments to create a “stir”. Her past history of rescues says quite a bit. Meanwhile all the celebrities who have fancy pedigreed dogs get nary a frown.
When this is your first remarks about the dog, please tell me how it’s everyone else’s fault for misinterpreting your comments. And this was in relation to her and her husband looking to adopt another dog…..
“We actually did adopt a dog already, but then it ate my passport and so I took her back to the home,” Lily said.
“She ate all three of our passports and they had our visas in. And I cannot tell you how much money it cost me to get everything replaced, because it was in Covid and so it was just an absolute logistical nightmare.
“And because the father of my children lives in England, I couldn’t take them back to see their dad for like four months, five months, because this fucking dog had eaten the passports.”
No context as later added, just a callous “so I took her back to the home” and “this fu@$ing dog”. Yeah, she really tried…. complains about click bait when that’s all she is, click bait of obnoxious and offensive remarks.
This is what is referred to as ‘bad publicity’
You can’t run or hide from it because it sticks to you like glue.
I was a SW who was once responsible for re-homing real children.
I’ll never forget the faces of the parental figures who dropped off the kid(s)
Set in stone, resolved and inpatient to flee, some not even saying goodbye.
There are real, live monsters out there.
Call them out and keep it up.
She did better than Anna Farris, Chris Pratt and Dorit Kemsley. That said, if you don’t want people commenting on stuff like this, don’t talk about it. Don’t act like you’re new to celeb gossip, Lily, you knew what was gonna happen in the comments.