Lily Allen Drops USB of New Album "West End Girl" in Provocative Plug Design

British singer and songwriter Lily Allen has launched a limited-edition piece of merchandise for her new album "West End Girl": a butt plug-shaped USB drive preloaded with the full record, a design choice that has quickly become a viral talking point across social media and entertainment media.

The item, sold through Allen’s official webstore , is explicitly described as a novelty USB device intended for data storage only, clarifying that it is not an actual sex toy despite its unmistakably suggestive appearance.

"West End Girl" is Allen’s latest studio album, released on 2025-10-24, and has been widely framed as a candid, narrative-driven documentation of the breakdown of her marriage to "Stranger Things" actor David Harbour. The 14-track album lays out, in largely chronological order, the trajectory of their relationship, from their move to New York to an eventual emotional collapse rooted in alleged infidelity and misuse of an open relationship.

According to reporting on the album’s creation, Allen wrote "West End Girl" over about ten days in December 2024, shortly after she and Harbour separated following four years of marriage. Coverage describes the record as exploring themes of betrayal, gaslighting, emotional devastation, and the process of rebuilding a sense of self after a painful romantic rupture.

Independent record retailers, including Limited Addition Records and Lunchbox Records , list "West End Girl" for release on vinyl through BMG with a scheduled physical release date of 2026-01-30, underscoring the album’s positioning as both a headline-grabbing personal statement and a major-label project.

Coverage of the merch notes that Allen’s team opened preorders for the USB drive on 2025-12-03 via her official webstore, with the device promoted as part of a “limited quantities” drop tied to the "West End Girl" era. The USB arrives preloaded with the album’s 14 tracks, offering fans an alternative physical format beyond streaming and vinyl.

The design has drawn attention because the device is shaped like a butt plug but sold strictly as a data-storage novelty item. The product listing on Allen’s site explicitly states: “Note: This is a novelty USB device intended for data storage only. ” International Business Times reports that the item is priced at £24. 99, positioning it as premium but accessible merch compared to typical deluxe physical editions.

International Business Times describes one particular version of the device as decorated with white and blue polka dots, visually matching the puffer jacket Allen wears on the "West End Girl" cover, further integrating the USB’s aesthetic into the album’s broader visual identity.

Allen amplified the drop on social media, sharing an image from the backseat of a car on the way to The Fashion Awards 2025, wearing a custom Valentino gown and holding the polka-dotted butt plug-shaped USB for the camera. The moment was presented as part fashion stunt, part promotional reveal, and circulated widely on platforms like Instagram and X .

On X, Allen promoted the item with the caption “limited merch drop, live now 🍑🔌” alongside a link to the store and an image of the USB, highlighting the cheeky, sex-toy-adjacent branding.

The choice of a butt plug-shaped object is not random branding; coverage links it directly to Allen’s song “Pussy Palace, ” track seven on "West End Girl". International Business Times reports that the song recounts Allen discovering sex toys and love letters while dropping medication at her husband’s West Village apartment, an event that prompts her to reevaluate their entire relationship.

The track’s lyrics explicitly mention sex toys and butt plugs—“Duane Reade bag with the handles tied. Sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside. Hundreds of Trojans, you’re so fucking broken. How’d I get caught up in your double life?”—and frame the discovery as a turning point in her understanding of her partner’s conduct. The song also includes a "Stranger Things"-style musical intro, a detail that has led some listeners to draw their own inferences about whom the track references.

Consequence links the butt plug-shaped USB directly to these lyrics, describing the merch as an extension of Allen’s lyrical allusions to sex toys and hidden sexual behavior. Together, the song and the device form a cohesive narrative and visual motif centered on sexual transparency, secrecy, and control over one’s own story.

Entertainment and pop culture outlets have widely covered the USB drop, often with sensational headlines centered on Allen “selling butt plugs as merch” before clarifying that the item is not a functional sex toy. One radio-oriented outlet framed the story as Allen promoting her new album “by selling sex toy-shaped USB drives, ” emphasizing the sex toy resemblance while acknowledging the purely novelty function.

International Business Times reports that the merchandise “quickly became a fan favourite, ” spotlighting social media comments on Allen’s Instagram announcement. The outlet notes that the most-liked comment on her post read, “Yessss girllll make a profit off him, ” reflecting a segment of fans’ enthusiasm for Allen leveraging her personal trauma and alleged mistreatment into creative work and playful, provocative merch.

Other comments cited by International Business Times include a user joking, “But anything is a toy if you try, ” and another remarking, “Perfect size for the clutch 💅🏿, ” demonstrating the way fans are meeting Allen’s irreverence with their own. Many followers described her as “ICONIC” for releasing such a provocative product tied to a personal narrative of betrayal.

Consequence characterizes Allen’s move as evidence that her “trolling game” remains “top-notch, ” signaling how some observers interpret the stunt as a deliberate, tongue-in-cheek jab in the context of her very public split and the album’s frank storytelling.

Reporting has also focused on alleged reactions from David Harbour to both the album and the butt plug-themed merch. Consequence cites a Yahoo-based report describing Harbour as “furious” about the project and the implications of Allen’s lyrics and imagery. According to that coverage, an unnamed “insider” claimed that “the embarrassment is off the charts” and that Harbour is upset at being portrayed as a “skirt-chasing monster and the world’s worst husband. ”

The situation raises ongoing debates about how public figures use personal relationships as material, including questions about consent, narrative ownership, and perceived retaliation in art and marketing. Entertainment reporting on "West End Girl" consistently frames the record as Allen’s account of events, underlining that listeners and media are engaging primarily with her perspective as the narrator and songwriter.

While the album and merch are rooted in Allen’s heterosexual marriage, the project speaks to themes—sexual honesty, power imbalances in relationships, and reclaiming painful experiences through art—that are significant for many LGBTQ+ listeners as well. Coverage emphasizes how Allen uses explicit references to sex toys, open relationships, and emotional fallout to tell a story about negotiating desire, boundaries, and autonomy.

Sex toy imagery has long been part of queer and trans-inclusive pop culture, both as a symbol of sexual liberation and as a way to normalize conversations around pleasure and kink. By centering a butt plug-shaped device in mainstream album merchandising and explicitly linking it to her own narrative of discovering hidden sexual lives, Allen brings a typically niche, adult product shape into a more visible, normalized context, though always framed as a joke-leaning novelty.

The way fans have responded—celebrating her for “making a profit” off past harm and describing the merch as “iconic”—aligns with a broader pattern in pop fandom, including LGBTQ+ fan communities, where reclaiming pain via bold, campy gestures is often valued as a form of resistance and self-definition. Allen’s choice to embrace explicit content and visual innuendo may resonate with those who see frank, sex-positive storytelling as an important counterweight to shame-based or judgmental attitudes about sexuality, whether queer or straight.