Lily Allen: 'I only made £8k from doing the John Lewis advert'

The 'Smile' star split opinion when her cover of Keane's 'Somewhere Only We Know' soundtracked the John Lewis ad and went on to the top the UK singles chart. 

However, when BEAT Magazine asked Allen what a music star should expect to earn in 2014, she replied: "Nothing. Everyone assumes I made millions from the John Lewis ad – I probably made £8k."

Allen continued: "Now I’m not earning much from the music. I won’t do as much promo for the record company. It’s changed in that sense. I have to look at other ways. Back then [before her 'retirement'] it was about doing as much press as possible, but now one quote will spread everywhere.

"So you don’t want to do as much, because you saturate the media very quickly. Jonathan Ross, X Factor, so many opinions, it’s too much. You want to hold it back."

Allen recently made headlines when she revealed that her new video for latest single 'Our Time' has been banned by MTV - and has took to Twitter to slam their decision. The singer, who is preparing for the release of her third album Sheezus, posted a screenshot on Twitter of an email telling her MTV want to ban the video in the daytime unless they cut out scenes they deem to be PG, including clips of her drinking from a flask and fighting with another version of herself dressed as a hotdog (obviously). 

The 'Our Time' video, which sees Allen playing multiple versions of herself on a night out, will not, however, be getting a clean edit according to the anonymous sender of the email. "Age of beige," Allen captioned the screenshot. "I thought MTV just played Catfish and Super Sweet 16," the singer added.