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Just two years ago, actor David Harbour (star of Stranger Things) and British singer Lily Allen opened the door to their newly designed Brooklyn townhouse for Architectural Digest. Inspired by The Godfather and Parisian couture of Coco Chanel, the home stood as a symbol of their “transformative” relationship, as Harbour described. Upon the video team’s arrival, he said, “Oh God, what the hell are you doing here? The last time I was single and I was living in the Lower East Side. I have a family now, kids… this is just so embarrassing. You look great, come on in.” What once appeared as a joke now reads like prophecy — or at least an unspoken desire to play with fire. Some time after the couple generously shared their design vision, news broke of Harbour’s alleged three‑year affair with a costume designer while still married. Harbour, whose public image took a serious hit, did not respond to the allegations. Allen, on the other hand, poured her anger into her revenge album West End Girl, which lays bare details of the “la vie en rose” she lived alongside him. The Brooklyn home is now listed for sale at $8 million — if you’re in the market for swan‑shaped faucets and a space‑age fridge. The love story that swept away fans Their romance had captivated fans because the two seemed like a positive anomaly in Hollywood. They met during the pandemic in 2019 via the exclusive dating app Raya, which limits membership to the rich, the famous or both. On their first date, Harbour said Allen looked at him and saw “the tallest and shortest man she’s ever met.” Both were emerging from difficult break‑ups — Allen from her divorce from Sam Cooper, father of her two daughters Harbour from his split with Alison Sudol just a month before his first sighting with Allen, fueling speculation of overlap. They seemed perfectly matched — he American, she British actor and pop‑star self‑deprecating humor and family‑oriented warmth — which made it unsurprising when they married a year later in a modest ceremony in Las Vegas officiated by an Elvis impersonator. Harbour’s Instagram post read: “The princess of the people married her loyal credit‑card holder, of humble origin but big heart.” On the surface, it looked like a one‑of‑a‑kind success story. Soon after Allen’s two teenage daughters and Harbour relocated to New York, where he embraced the role of step‑father in a way that impressed his audience — no small feat in Hollywood, where even blood ties don’t guarantee stability. They bought the Brooklyn house, complete with French‑style fixtures, a Finnish sauna and a Jacuzzi where Harbour loved to relax his feet in the jets — as the finishing touch to his image transformation. Three years earlier, Harbour had become a breakout star with his role as James Hopper on “Stranger Things,” emerging as a bruised‑masculine modern archetype capable of both breaking a door and breaking down emotionally. He had earned a Tony nomination for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? fifteen years earlier and added screen credits, including Aaron Sorkin’s “Newsroom” and the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. In 2021, he portrayed the Red Guardian in the Marvel film Black Widow, a role he reprised this year in Thunderbolts. The lead role in “Hellboy,” however, remains a blemish on his résumé after harsh reviews and his own director’s disavowal. In 2021, when he was riding the wave of a beloved hit series and starring in films, Harbour is alleged to have embarked on a side affair with costume designer Natalie Tippett, a 34‑year‑old single mother whom he met working on the Netflix film "We Have a Ghost." He later invited her to his Atlanta home during “Stranger Things” filming to “keep him company.” Strange things indeed It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the love story between Lily Allen and David Harbour turned from a heartfelt romance into a hollow performance, but in retrospect, the actor’s affair with the costume designer reportedly began in the second year of their marriage. According to the celebrity gossip account DeuxMoi, Allen’s suspicions were piqued by Harbour’s “strange behavior.” She re-downloaded the Raya dating app, this time under the alias Dallas Major, listing her preference as “women.” She then began a meticulous cross-checking process between the Instagram accounts that Harbour followed. Eventually, she struck gold: an active profile belonging to Harbour himself, featuring a cartoon avatar and a bio that read, “Closet nerd that plays tough guys on your TV.” He noted that he lived in Atlanta — far from their family home in Brooklyn. Allen has said that discovering she wasn’t imagining things triggered a psychological crisis. With a history of substance abuse, she checked herself into a trauma treatment center to avoid relapse. It was also the beginning of the end for the public image of Harbour as the “tough but lovable Santa Claus.” The contrast between his wholesome, morally upright persona — embodied by his role as Jim Hopper on Stranger Things — and the reality of infidelity proved jarring. Fans shifted from admiration to disappointment. Just two days after their split, Harbour was seen vacationing in India with a 26-year-old woman named Ellie Fallon, photographed with her at a local temple. Whether this marked a spiritual awakening or simply a strategic escape from media scrutiny is unclear, but it hardly aligned with the warm, caring image he had cultivated. As is often the case in Hollywood, when it rains, it pours. New stories emerged or old ones resurfaced, painting Harbour in a less flattering light. In 2015, a 29-year-old woman fell to her death from the window of Harbour’s East Village apartment. Authorities said she had a history of mental health issues and treated the case as a suicide. Harbour, who was in Toronto at the time, said he had tried to help her, describing her as “a woman in pain. I’m very confused. She seemed lovely.” Online videos began re-examining Harbour’s public behavior, with critics claiming that his supposed respect for women might have been only surface deep. At a red carpet event for the Time’s Up initiative, Harbour wore a pin supporting the cause but fumbled when asked to explain its meaning, finally offering, “It’s about women getting more respect in their workplaces.” Anonymous online accounts — allegedly from colleagues — claimed Harbour had a reputation in the theater world as self-centered. One source said he made co-star Lily Rabe cry daily during a Broadway production, even throwing a chair at the stage manager. Allen also revealed a card Harbour once sent her with flowers in 2021, after she was cast in the West End play 2:22 A Ghost Story. The message read: “My ambitious wife, these are bad luck flowers, 'cause if you get reviewed well in this play, you will get all kinds of awards, and I'll be miserable. Your loving husband.” Allen later said Harbour struggled with the fact that she landed the role without needing to audition. What some internet users might call “jealousy” appears to have manifested in Harbour’s need to undermine his wife. According to Allen, during her time working on the play in London, he called her with a simple message: “I have a lot of needs. I need to sleep with other women while you’re not in New York.” Allen agreed, saying she wanted to make Harbour happy — but by her account, that was the beginning of the end of their relationship. The gift that keeps on giving Lily Allen has never been one to keep her private life under wraps. Her previous marriage to real estate developer Sam Cooper lasted seven years, produced two daughters (and one traumatic stillbirth), and ended amid public revelations of her repeated infidelities — something she has openly acknowledged. She has admitted to hiring escorts while touring and once having sex with then-married Liam Gallagher on a flight. Allen described the divorce period as a total mental collapse, during which she lost her home, her marriage, and nearly her sanity — until therapy and Alcoholics Anonymous helped her recover. Three months after separating from David Harbour, Allen released West End Girl, a musical tell-all written in just 10 days and recorded in under three weeks. Despite the quick turnaround, the album received glowing praise, including a “masterpiece” label from lifestyle mogul Gwyneth Paltrow. If you’re looking for an unfiltered view into the Allen-Harbour relationship, the album delivers. After a seven-year musical hiatus, Allen offers 14 tracks detailing their love story — from early courtship to suspicion, betrayal and the realization that she couldn’t fix Harbour. That, she concludes, was up to him. She sings about finding, in his second apartment, a bag filled with sex toys, lube, hundreds of condoms and butt plugs — leaving her stunned at the double life he had led. One track recounts the London play incident and (from her perspective) the phone call in which Harbour announced he wanted to “open” their relationship. She claims he lied to other women, telling them the marriage was open while ignoring the terms they had set: only with strangers, only for money and always discreet. In a pointed song addressed to a woman named “Madeline” — widely interpreted as Natalie Tippett — Allen asks whether they had sex in her Brooklyn home. While some speculated Allen rushed the album release to sabotage the promo tour for Stranger Things’ final season, she denied it was a revenge project. “I don’t feel confused or angry now,” she told Interview Magazine. “It’s not a cruel album. I don’t feel like I’m being mean.” In a twist, Allen received unexpected support from Harbour’s ex-girlfriend, actress Alison Sudol, who once called him “generous, big-hearted, a wonder of a man.” She reacted to the album announcement with a supportive emoji. The fallout from West End Girl — which has surpassed eight million streams on Spotify — is already hitting Harbour’s career. According to Daily Mail, Netflix is preparing for a major press campaign ahead of Stranger Things’ final season and may sideline the 50-year-old actor to avoid a PR fiasco. Harbour has remained publicly silent, but anonymous sources close to him have pushed back, accusing Allen of trying to cash in. One insider claimed, “Men find her difficult. She makes them want to rip their hair out and run. That’s what happened with her first husband too.” As of this writing, the divorce isn’t final, but Allen now refers to Harbour as her “ex-husband.”
