DISCREET and “not blatant”, with a stranger and with mandatory payment – those were the strict rules set by Lily Allen that allegedly allowed her husband of four years to cheat.
Now the scorned songstress, 40, has ferociously lifted the lid on the ‘arrangement’ with Stranger Things actor David Harbour in a song titled ‘Madeline’.
It’s the moniker she gave to costume designer and single mum Natalie Tippett, 34, who allegedly cheated with the American, 50, despite suggesting she had given him a ‘hall pass’ to sleep with sex workers.
Fuming in lyrics, which she says are a “mixture of fact and fiction”, Lily says: “We had an arrangement; Be discreet and don’t be blatant; And there had to be payment; It had to be with strangers; But you’re not a stranger, Madeline, Madeline, Madeline, Madeline.”
The track on her comeback album West End Girl, which documents the unravelling of her relationship and his supposed infidelity, has earned critical acclaim and has three songs in the Top 40.
Unsurprisingly, it’s Lily’s anti-monogamy stance that has raised the eyebrows of listeners but these types of ‘arrangements’ are far from unusual in the world of celebrity.
Behavioural psychologist Jo Hemmings tells The Sun some are tempted due to working away for long periods of time and feeling unable to satisfy each other sexually or emotionally.
However, she cautions: “No matter how many boundaries or rules you put in place, what happens when it becomes more than just sex and your partner falls in love?”
“There are so, so many obstacles with these types of relationships,” Jo tells us. “And it’s interesting that Lily had this very specific boundary.
“She set it because there would be very little danger of her husband falling in love with one of these girls or having an emotional relationship when it’s purely sexual and transactional.
“It sort of sounds modern, grown-up and pre-emptive, deciding you’re in an open relationship and acknowledging what’s going on rather than being ‘cheated on’ but it rarely works.
“There is nearly always one person who is secretly less comfortable with the idea than they say they are and there’s a big difference between ‘theoretical acceptance’ and actual acceptance.
“When the gossip starts and the press finds out, when it happens on repeat and the public starts to judge their relationship it can get really, really tough.
“And some ‘open relationships’ are less genuine than one might think, some say they are in one to protect themselves. It can be deflective in a lot of cases.
“I think a lot of celebrities are pre-empting scrutiny and that way if their partner is seen snogging the face off someone at a bar, they are one step ahead of the game.”
As Jo highlights, Lily is far from the only celebrity to be stung after opening the sexual floodgates in her relationship – with many ending in divorce, as we reveal.
Will & Jada Pinkett Smith
The aftermath of this ill-fated ‘arrangement’ resulted in the most explosive moment ever seen at the Oscars, which led to Will Smith being banned for 10 years and scrutinised across the globe.
In 2022, the Fresh Prince star slapped Chris Rock after he made a joke about his wife of 28 years Jada Pinkett-Smith’s alopecia, comparing her to a buzz-cut character from the film GI Jane.
Yet the origin of Will’s anger is said to have stemmed from the public ridicule and humiliation he suffered after Jada admitted to an affair two years previously.
Describing it as an “entanglement”, she spoke of a fling with August Alsina, a rapper 21 years her junior, who was a friend of their son Jaden, during a separation from Will.
Later Will apologised for his Oscars attack, stating: “I was gone. That was a rage that had been bottled [up] for a really long time… What I would say is that you just never know what somebody’s going through.”
Rumours of the Smiths having an open marriage had circulated for more than a decade and even when Jada denied it in a 2013 Huffington Post interview, her cryptic response prompted more questions.
She said: “I’ve always told Will, ‘You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay.’”
Later Jada posted a lengthy rant on Facebook questioning if loving someone meant “owning them” and if it should “operate as enslavement”.
She concluded: “Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship…this means we have a GROWN one.”
Jo says for some celebrities being part of a ‘power couple’ can lead to more sexually flexible relationships, as it appeared to be with the Smiths, but it rarely works.
She tells us for some it can be a “way of protecting themselves” ahead of an affair being discovered or a way to have “a feeling of control, by agreeing on the terms” of what can and can’t be done.
“It can be hard to fulfil your partner’s emotional and physical needs when you’re half way across the world and flings may seem like a ‘harmless release’,” Jo says.
“And it’s easy for celebrities to go into these agreements with good intentions but you cannot predict how you or your partner will feel when it happens.
“There are so many opportunities in the chaos of celebrity life for boundaries to be overstepped and so almost inevitably it will go wrong at some point.
“Even if both partners feel they are on the same page and in 100 per cent agreement, most couples aren’t. One partner always wants it more than the other and the other may not be able to accept what happened.”
Michelle Visage & David Case
Former Strictly star Michelle Visage set sparks flying away from the stage when she claimed cheating makes her marriage “stronger” – but she’s not exactly thrilled by his flings.
She told the Origins With Cush Jumbo podcast that her actor hubby David Case experiences ‘compersion’, which is considered to be ‘the opposite of jealousy’.
It’s a term often used in the polyamorous community to describe a partner feeling joy that their romantic partner had an exciting experience with another person.
“We live openly, so he would get off knowing that I was so happy and no matter what it is that I do, and I’m not just talking sexually,” Michelle said last year.
“Whatever it is, I don’t know if I have compersion in me to be really excited if he’s doing something with another woman but I know that it exists and he is 100% that.”
While Michelle claimed it was something that “works for us” and “what makes us stronger”, Jo says it can still be problematic.
She warns it’s risky when meddling with “the intimacy of a relationship” despite the couple claiming to be “fully transparent and trusting one another”.
Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher
When Ghost actress Demi Moore shacked up with Ashton Kutcher, 21 years her junior, she wanted to “show him how great and fun I could be” – especially when it came to sex.
“I put him first, so when he expressed his fantasy of bringing a third person into our bed, I didn’t say no,” she admitted in her 2019 memoir Inside Out.
But her two ménages à trois, left Demi feeling “flooded with shame” and realising it was a “mistake”. Worse still, Ashton later told her it encouraged him to have affairs.
She claimed the That 70s Show actor told her the threesomes “blurred the lines” of their romance and “to some extent, justified what he’d done”.
It referred to at least three flings, including one on a San Diego stag do and another with a pal of her eldest daughter, that doomed their six-year marriage by November 2011.
Jo says she sees issues like what happened with Demi and Ashton “a lot” in counselling – where one partner is “willing to please” because their partner “wants it so badly” and fears losing them.
“But it can have devastating consequences for the relationship,” she says. “Maybe not immediately but some struggle because they can’t unseen what they have seen or what their partner has done.
“Some aren’t even able to recall seeing their husband having sex with another woman, because it’s so brutal for them. Many prefer to turn blind eye, not see or not join in.
“Even if they think they want it at the time, sometimes threesomes can be the last straw for a couple or for any agreed infidelity.”
Ethan Hawke & Ryan Shawhughes
Ethan Hawke’s marriage to Uma Thurman was marked by rumours of cheating, which he strenuously denied, yet after their 2003 split he made it clear he strongly believes in polyamory.
After getting together with their former nanny Ryan Shawhughes, he argued that most people have “a childish view of monogamy and fidelity”, suggesting it as an outdated concept.
“To act all indignant, that your world has been rocked because your lover wasn’t faithful to you, is a little bit like acting rocked that your hair went grey,” Ethan told HuffPost in 2013.
It’s unclear how open the relationship with Ryan is but he encouraged speculation by stating “neither she nor I know what shape the future will come in” and justified extramarital flings.
“Sexual fidelity can’t be the whole thing you hang your relationship on,” he added. “If you really love somebody you want them to grow, but you don’t get to define how that happens. They do.”
Shirley MacLaine & Steve Parker
Hollywood legend Shirley MacLaine, who starred in Steel Magnolias and Terms of Endearment, had an open marriage for 28 years.
It started back in 1954 due to her producer husband, Steve Parker, predominantly working in Japan while she was in America and she admitted “no one understood it” apart from them.
She added: “I would say better to stay friends and we don’t have enough time to talk about the sexuality of all. I was very open about all of that and so was he.”
Despite declaring extra-marital flings “the basis for a long-lasting marriage”, the couple divorced in 1982 but remained friends.
Jo says these types of arrangements can be more common among celebrities due to them maintaining long-distance relationships because of work projects, however it’s very risky.
“While it may feel like a safety net, it can erode trust and intimacy and instead of enjoying the ‘freedom and liberation’ they anticipate, they can feel like they are being replaced.
“You can put in a world of boundaries and rules to but what happens when your partner falls in love with someone else? When it becomes more than just sex, you’re in trouble. Your relationship is effectively over.”
Bella Thorne & Tana Mongeau
For just over a year, Dirty Sexy Money actress Bella Thorne celebrated her open relationship with musician Mod Sun and YouTuber Tana Mongeau in loving posts online .
In 2019, she told the Gay Times: “We joke around about poly[amorous], but we aren’t in the sense that we don’t put a word, a box or label too many things. It is what it is.”
Bella even claimed that she didn’t think anybody could “really understand the bonds” she shared with Mod and Tana, only for their three-way romance to end just months later.
It all came tumbling down after what Mod – real name Derek Smith – described as a “very, very public incident” that led him to end their “toxic” relationship.
Bella later slammed Tana on X – formerly Twitter – for breaking “girl code” after she was seen on a date with Mod.
Tana later got engaged to boxer Jake Paul and had a legally non-binding wedding to the influencer-turned-fighter in late 2019.
They too had an open relationship but she revealed it heavily contributed to them splitting up because she felt compelled to “green-light everything” to make him happy, even though it was “killing” her.
Mo’Nique & Sidney Hicks
Precious actress Mo’Nique put an end to her open relationship with her husband and manager Sidney Hicks after fearing it would lead to them breaking up.
She first spoke about them having hall passes to cheat back in 2010, claiming “I don’t want to be owned anymore… [or] have ownership over anyone”.
Declaring her “beautiful” open relationship “my idea”, Mo’Nique said: “If sex happens with another person, that’s not a deal breaker for us.
“That’s not something where we’ll have to say, ‘Oh God, we’ve got to go to divorce court because you cheated on me,’ because we don’t cheat.”
However by 2023, Mo’Nique, who had been with Sidney since she was 16, changed her tune saying she wanted monogamy. She said it was down to recognising the strength of their relationship and his love for her “at my worst”.
She added: “I didn’t want to sacrifice that just for a lay. So I grew out of that.”