Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty ImagesLily Allen is opening up for the first time about her tragic still birth—and the depression that followed.
The 28-year-old singer was six months pregnant when she lost her baby boy in November 2010, with husband Sam Cooper by her side. In a new interview with The Sun, the brunette beauty admits the devastating death is something from which she'll never truly recover.
"It was horrendous and something I would not wish on my worst enemy," Allen says of the still birth. "It's something that I still haven't dealt with. I never will get over it. I have dealt with it, you know, as being at one with it."
"But it's not something that you get over," she continued. "I held my child and it was really horrific and painful—one of the hardest things that can happen to a person."
Still, her husband's love helped the singer remain strong.
"I was overwhelmed by what an incredibly unlucky thing it was to happen," she confessed. "But I had this man standing by my side, who I knew was going to be with me for the rest of my life."
Days later, Allen was rushed to the hospital with septicemia, an often fatal blood poisoning infection which left the state of her life in question.
"I nearly died. But I was numb and I didn't care. I'd just lost my baby and that is a reflection of how numb I was," she said.
Allen successfully underwent an operation, and she and Sam are now the proud parents of two daughters, Ethel and Marnie.
The mother of two, who also suffered a miscarriage in 2008 with Chemical Brothers' Ed Simons, is now offering her support to others by speaking candidly about her painful past for the first time.
"I just think that he's a part of my eldest really. If he hadn't died, it wouldn't have physically been possible for our eldest to be alive because I got pregnant with her so quickly," she says of the son she lost. "We've got a little stone in our garden with his name on. And lots of different things that I do, rituals, I have him in my mind."
She also says the tragedy brought her and her husband closer together.
"My husband and I shared this horrible thing together but it kind of brought us closer," she revealed. "I was so lucky to have him there because there are so many women who go through it on their own and have to deal with it with no support. And statistically, which is scary, 70 percent of couples that go through it don't make it through. But just before the baby died, when it wasn't looking great, Sam held my hand and said, 'Don't worry. I'll be here forever and will look after you. It's going to be fine.'"
Despite her husband's support, life didn't get easier after Allen's daughter Ethel was born in November 2011.
"My oldest kid was quite sick. She had two operations in the first two months. And then she was tube-fed until she was about seven months old," the singer admitted. "And as her mum and especially what had happened to me in the past, I couldn't take my eyes off her. It was mentally exhausting."
"Then she couldn't gain weight. I just felt exhausted," she continued. My husband said. 'You just need to get out of the house for a few hours'. I don't really know anything else so I started writing songs. It wasn't like, 'Right, I want to go back to being a pop star and make a new album.' It was just about claiming back a bit of my life and reconnecting myself really."