Lily Allen Tops The Chart And Beats The Booze

You'd be hard pressed to label Lily Allen a typical 21-year-old. And that's not just because her first single, "Smile," topped the British singles sales chart this week. Allen also recently ditched a nasty habit that most girls her age are just starting to enjoy: the drink.

"I used to drink a lot, but I don't have to now," says Allen from a stuffy, un-air-conditioned tour bus somewhere between Leeds and Sheffield in the U.K.

As for the life-altering moment of clarity that turned the one-time teenaged Ibiza Ecstasy dealer straight: it was as simple as "the morning after."

"Drinking's not a good thing to rely on, I think we all know that," says Allen. "But I wasn't really relying on it."

That boozy past that Allen's referring to wasn't three weeks ago when she played to 30,000 fans at Britain's T4 On The Beach festival — not bad for her seventh gig ever.The daughter of a Welsh celebrity dad (actor Keith Allen) and Hollywood producer mom (Alison Owen), Allen's been struggling to spark a music career with her cynical, Sugababes-style pop for the past five years. There'd been a few class assembly performances in her tumultuous teenage past in between getting expelled and running away from various English schools.

But it wasn't until Arctic Monkeys-like internet stardom (her MySpace page, which launched last November, received a deluge of hits) shot Allen into the British pop-consciousness that the singer found herself thrust before a real audience. Understandably, a drink or five was in order to ease the pressure.

"I was pissing myself with nerves so I thought it would be a good idea to get absolutely plastered," she wrote on June 26 on her MySpace blog. "I was on at 11:45 or something, so I was pissed by 10 a.m.... I got sent home by management at 1 p.m. for being loud and obnoxious."

A U.K mini-tour to promote the new Alright Still album will do wonders for a fledgling superstar's stage presence. Ten shows and "probably 100" interviews in, Allen says she's already feeling at home in the spotlight.

"I'm definitely more comfortable with the stage stuff at the moment. I'm beating my fear. I don't have to drink as much anymore to get out on stage. Nothing but tea last night."