Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver on growing up with absent parents, finding fame young and why no one can have it all
LILY ALLEN AND Miquita Oliver have been best friends since birth. Brought up in Ladbroke Grove in west London, they spent their youth shoplifting in Portobello Market and flunking school. In the noughties, they shot to fame – Allen as a pop star, Oliver as a TV presenter – and their antics, which often involved falling out of nightclubs, dominated the tabloids. Now, having stepped away from the hedonism of their youth – a lifestyle that took its toll – the duo are back: older, wiser and with a podcast.
Allen is now based in New York, so, twice a week, she’ ll be dialling in for a transatlantic catch-up with the London-based Oliver. In Miss Me?, the two will put the world to rights, with explorations of pop culture, thoughts on politics, ramblings on family, love, life and death and, of course, the odd story from back in the day.
The friends’ early lives were shaped by the mothers who brought them up – Allen’s mum is the f ilm producer Alison Owen (Allen’s father is the actor Keith Allen, from whom Alison split when their daughter was four) and Oliver was raised by her mother, singer turned chef and broadcaster Andi Oliver.
“If you were looking for an adjective [to describe our childhoods] – you would say quite bohemian,” says Allen, 38. “But I hate that word. Our families worked in creative industries. There were lots of artists, writers, musicians and cooks. There weren’t many hedge fund managers.
“Our parents used to hang out in this one particular restaurant called 192. There wasn’t enough space for the kids, so we would be left outside, going round Portobello Market. We’d shoplift things.
“There was much more of a sense of community. My mum didn’t have enough money to hire a nanny, but godparents would step in, meals were provided, and people would be there to help with homework. It took a village, and it really did feel like that.”
Oliver, 39, agrees. “I think there’s a misconception that Lily was a rich kid – she really wasn’t. Alison worked really hard, and they didn’t have anything when Lily was a kid. There was quite a lot of fear around our mums being skint. Then things would change, my mum would get a job, Alison would get a job, and then all the money would go again. It was quite up and down and all over the place. We were all brought up in my mum’s housing trust flat.”
They attended “six or seven” schools each – but, despite their lack of academic success, both Oliver and Allen found themselves catapulted to fame. Oliver was 16 when she landed her first TV gig, presenting music show Popworld, part of Channel 4’s T4 strand. Allen was 21 w
