4 months ago
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David Harbour and Lily Allen have been together since 2019. They met via the exclusive dating app Raya while David was filming Black Widow in London and got married in September 2020 in Las Vegas. Last winter, they did an Open Door video for Architectural Digest focusing on their Brooklyn townhouse. It revealed that their bathroom is carpeted with a sitting area and fireplace. While I personally think that’s a bit extra for a bathroom, it made sense to me because they just seem like they’re “carpets in the bathroom” type of people.
Anyway, Lily just did an interview with The Sunday Times with her friend and Miss Me? podcast co-host Miquita Oliver. During the interview, Lily revealed that having a carpeted bathroom isn’t the only unconventional thing that she and David do. They also have a unique way of keeping one another honest when it comes to limiting the amount of time spent on their phones: a parental control app that allows them to control what apps they can download onto their phones.
“I now have a kids’ phone called Pinwheel. It has no browsing capability and no social media, but you can still have Uber and Spotify,” Allen explained. “My husband is the caregiver on it, so he controls what I’m allowed to have as an app on my phone. I’m the controller of his as well.”
The Miss Me? podcast host joked that they are acting like each other’s parents: “‘What’s your child’s name? David, aged 50.’ ”
Allen — who has two daughters, Ethel, 12, and Marnie, 11, with ex-husband Sam Cooper — also shared in her interview with The Sunday Times that she took her children’s smartphones away after reading that they shouldn’t have access to them yet.
“The Fear” singer called smartphones “evil,” and said they’ve ruined the “creative side” of her brain.
“I feel like everyone feels the same. I don’t know anyone who could possibly say that the quality of their life is improved by the presence of a smartphone. I think it’s destroyed us as a species. It’s horrendous that they’re designed to be so addictive. Some of us have more addictive personalities than others,” Allen added.
Speaking about married life and co-parenting with her husband, Allen told the outlet that she recently started to ask her loved ones “for help” after going on a one-on-one “trauma weekend” retreat in upstate New York.
“What came out of it was this complete inability to be vulnerable,” she said. “So I’ve been exercising my right to ask for help, and it’s completely changed my life. Just dumb things, like getting up in the morning, being tired, rolling over and saying to David, ‘Can you do breakfast and the school run this morning?’ And him saying, ‘Yes, course I can!’ And I’m like, ‘What?'”
I honestly can’t decide how I feel about this. On one hand, it’s kinda cute that they trust each other enough to relinquish control of their phones for what they think is a greater good. My mom’s weakness is chocolate, so whenever she buys a chocolate bar, she eats a piece and then has my dad hide it from her so she won’t eat it all in one sitting. It sorta has that kind of energy.
On the other hand, I also find it a bit overkill to have another adult approve of what you want to put onto your phone. I totally understand her point about addictive personalities and the dangers of too much screen time, but I don’t know if I’d go as far as say that smartphones have “destroyed us as a species.” I think just like with most technological advances, there are both benefits (like FaceTime) and downsides (like less in-person interaction). If Lily needs to be held accountable to not waste hours on TikTok or get sucked down some other rabbit hole of self-destruction, then I guess she’s doing what needs to be done.
Photos credit: Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com, PA Images/INSTARimages, celebrityphotos uk / Avalon and via Instagram
