Singer Lily Allen has spoken out about being sexually assaulted by a record industry executive, detailing how the music industry is "rife" with similar abuse.
Speaking to The Guardian, the British singer said that even during the current #MeToo movement, the music industry remains quiet on the scale of the issue.
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Allen described her own experience, where a powerful industry figure assaulted her when she fell asleep in his hotel room after getting "smashed" at a party.
"I woke up at 5am because I could feel someone next to me pressing their naked body against my back... I could feel someone trying to put their penis inside my vagina and slapping my arse as if I were a stripper in a club."
While Allen said she blamed herself for the incident as she had been drinking, she now wishes she had confronted the man and not continued working alongside him.
She said she was scared to be labelled "hysterical" or a "difficult woman", which made her feel silenced and under the man's control.
Allen was later offered a gig promoted by Radio 1, but when she found out one of the alleged assaulter's artists would be present, and potentially the record executive himself, she turned it down.
She claims that subsequently she was punished by Radio 1, with no airplay for her single 'Trigger Bang'.
The 33-year-old was going to name in man in her upcoming memoir, which will be published later this month, but decided against it after legal advice.
She said she now wants to highlight that this was not an isolated experience, suggesting the industry was "rife with sexual abuse" and there needed to be a "proper union for musicians".
"Let's try and teach our daughters to be stronger and more resilient, better at being less grateful, more insistent on being taken seriously, louder at saying no."
Newshub.
