“This makes my chest hurt”: This “sinister” old note from David Harbour to Lily Allen is sparking fresh outrage

A resurfaced note from David Harbour to his now-ex-wife Lily Allen is going viral in the wake of her new album chronicling their troubled marriage.

“West End Girl”

In the title track, she sings about getting a job on the West End shortly after she and Harbour purchased a home in the states: “I said ‘I got some good news, I got the lead in a play’ / That’s when your demeanour started to change / You said that I’d have to audition / I said ‘You’re deranged’ / And I thought, I thought that that was quite strange.”

This led to one X user digging up a note Allen previously said she received from her husband ahead of her stage debut in 2:22 A Ghost Story.

“My ambitious wife,” the note began, “these are bad luck flowers ’cause if you get reviewed well in this play, you will get all kinds of awards and I will be miserable. Your loving husband.”

Harbour-ing resentment

Some people insist the note should be taken as a playful joke between husband and wife. After all, Allen herself was the one who shared the note publicly at the time. But her new song has caused people to look at the bigger picture of how Harbour was interacting with her stage success.

His 2021 Instagram post announcing her debut saw him flip the script and joke that he was going to release a pop album. When Allen was nominated for an Olivier Award for her role, he was asked by an interviewer whether it was his first time there, to which he replied, “I’ve done about a hundred thousand plays. Never been recognized. Congratulations, darling.”

All these things, particularly when taken with the context her album is providing, seem to paint a picture of a man who was resentful of his wife’s success and reacted by poking at her just slightly enough that he could have plausible deniability that it’s what he was actually doing.

The internet chimes in

There’s been plenty of buzz about Harbour and Allen’s relationship since the album’s release, but this note in particular drew some serious criticism—and also sadness on Allen’s behalf, that the person meant to support her may have made such a big moment in her life all about his own petty resentments.

“oooohhh this makes my chest hurt”

“men who think they have a “sense of humour” and its just straight up malice”

“Men love pursuing successful, ambitious, independent women then resenting them for the very things they pursued them for. They’ll chip away at her self-worth, sabotage & humble her, hide behind “just joking” & “boundaries,” to be her biggest hater.”

“I get the feeling that David Harbour is more annoyed at the overwhelming positive reaction to West End Girl than he is about what it reveals about him.”