Corinne Bailey Rae has accused Lily Allen of waging a “campaign” against her.
The singer has opened up about her career in a new interview and admitted she was seen as “boring” after shooting to fame in the mid-2000s. Rae believes that image was cultivated by pop star Allen who went out of her way to describe her chart rival as “middle of the road.”
“In the British press, I was seen as boring and straight. I was making acoustic music, wearing these kinds of old-fashioned dresses,” Rae told The Independent.
“I was also married. I was so not interesting to them … I was just seen as boring,” Rae recalled. “I remember Lily Allen started this campaign against me, ‘Oh Corinne is so middle of the road.’”
“She had started talking about me like that, but I wasn’t going to engage in [in a war of words]. I thought, ‘I’m not going to bother with that. Stevie Wonder likes me, so it’s OK that Lily Allen doesn’t like me. That’s fine,'” Rae continued.
“Corinne Bailey Rae? I think she’s a bit boring, sorry. She’s a lovely girl, but I don’t think her music stands out, and I’d be a bit annoyed if she won,” Allen previously told The Mirror about Rae when they were both nominated for the British Female Solo Artist prize at the 2007 BRIT Awards. The trophy was won by Amy Winehouse.
In her new interview, Rae also talks about the loss of her husband, Jason Rae, who died in 2008 after suffering an accidental overdose of methadone. Rae admits his death shouldn’t have happened.
“It is really annoying that it wasn’t a different story … There were so many of our friends who had done crazier things or taken more risks,” the singer explained. “It was frustrating to compare his relatively low-risk encounters to date with that one dumb decision. I guess it’s really easy to die.”
“It was a drug-related death, and so suddenly everyone was so interested in me. There were rows of photographers outside the house … The fact that I wouldn’t give a statement to the press just totally infuriated them,” Rae said, confessing she was startled by the attention she received in the aftermath of the tragedy.
