David Harbour’s ex Alison Sudol has poured her heart out on social media since Lily Allen’s tell-all album West End Girl dropped a fortnight ago.
Just as Harbour, 50, was gearing up for his big red carpet moment for the premiere of the last ever Stranger Things series, in which he has a starring role as big softie hero Jim Hopper, his ex-wife lifted the lid on their messy marriage and stole all that thunder.
In her gobsmacking comeback album which dropped to critical acclaim, Lily, 40, who says the lyrics are ‘auto-fiction’, accused Harbour of cheating, lying and gaslighting in their marriage, which she made open so he could sleep with strangers for payment.
However, their ‘arrangement’ collapsed when Lily sang about discovering texts with Madeline – who is actually costume designer Natalie Tippet – a woman known to Harbour.
In Pussy Palace Lily sings that she ‘found a shoebox full of handwritten letters / From broken-hearted women wishing you could have been better’.
Lily also sings about finding a bag full of ’sex toys, butt plugs, and lube inside’ and wonders whether Harbour is a ‘sex addict’.
Alongside the scandal were candid lyrics of heartbreak, including Lily considering relapsing into alcohol after being pushed to the edge by their relationship.
While Harbour’s former co-stars including Florence Pugh, Milla Jovovich and Lily Rabe, and his ex Julia Stiles, have quietly supported Lily’s album by liking a number of social media posts promoting West End Girl, Alison has spilled on social media about her experience with an ex, which she heavily implies is Harbour.
Posting on social media last week, Alison shared a close up photo of herself lying on a bed with bags under her eyes looking defeated, and explained to followers it was taken in June 2019, when she lived in a fancy apartment in New York and her relationship was crumbling.
According to US Weekly, Harbour and Alison split in July 2019 having first been linked in January 2018. Harbour was then seen out and about with Lily in August 2019.
‘I was a kind of sad that drifted in and out of focus. I drifted in and out of focus. It was the tail end of a relationship but I didn’t know it yet,’ Alison wrote in the post, remembering that time.
‘I think I knew that something was wrong, suspected I wasn’t ok, but I was so confused, tangled up in a narrative that wasn’t mine but was so loud I couldn’t hear beyond it.
‘I couldn’t get my thoughts straight. It was abundantly clear I couldn’t change things, so I kept trying to change me.’
The Dig actress then said the ‘thing about bullies’ is that they ‘know how to win’.
‘They tie your hands together and convince you you’ve done it to yourself. It happens on the micro level, it happens on the macro,’ she explained.
The Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them actress said her strategy was to ‘lie down’ and nurse her wounds quietly when alone.
‘Still, I managed to put an ocean between me and that person,’ she continued.
‘I’ve spent the last 6 years being very careful of who I keep around me. I’ve rebuilt my sense of self, learned how to love + be loved in a healthy, kind relationship. No arrows in backs. No standing on heads. Just folding laundry together laughing.’
While it’s unknown when Alison met her current partner, Trespasses actor Tom Cullen, the pair share two children together aged four and two.
In the post, Alison went on to explain how ‘bullies of the past and present have dragged themselves out of their caves’ of late, and she’s no longer going to lie down quietly – having children has changed her too much for that.
‘Lying down keeps me up at night, every parent knows that anything that messes with your precious sleep is not worth it. It feels like a test from the universe. How to be kind yet stand up for myself? Bullies think kind people are weak, but are we? Especially when the person that is kind is the kind of person that can write songs,’ she added.
Days later, Alison posted another photo of her with choppy short hair, explaining that she originally wanted to share this one instead, but was worried about how it would be received.
‘I balked at the thought of posting a photo which might be labeled as angry the same week as calling out a bully ex. the fear of getting dubbed a vengeful, scorned woman who has cut off her hair and thus must hate all men actually reared its head,’ she said.
‘I’m laughing as I dig these ludicrous words out of my subconscious. But I think it deserves to be aired, because it’s these absolutely bonkers stories that surface when we are about to be brave that can derail us if we let them remain dark and lurky and horrible in the shadows of our head.’
Alison also stressed in videos following her first post that during her relationship with the ‘bully’ she was not a ‘lamb’, but rose to meet the ‘combative’ relationship which eventually wore her down.
‘I did fight in that situation. I didn’t just lie down,’ she clarified, adding that she was ‘sparring with a person who moves through the world with that energy and I don’t’.
Reflecting, Alison said this style of communication is a ‘tactic bullies take’ – of ‘railroading you and hitting you with one egregious thing after the next, going so far beyond what is acceptable interpersonal conduct’.
When this happens, Alison said that she felt ‘defeated, deflated, wilted and sad’.
‘It’s very easy to lose yourself and slip into apathy and step away from your agency and hand over the keys to the kingdom. You’re just tired,’ she explained. ‘That’s how they get what they want.’
It was a Jane Goodall documentary which put a fire in Alison’s belly and inspired her to speak out.
‘I want to look at the world and say what I see, and not fear the consequence,’ she said.
Alison’s original post was liked by Lily Allen, who she’s also been supporting on social media, replying with seven flame emojis on Lily’s post promoting West End Girl.
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