“Stranger Things” Star David Harbour Just Got Seriously Real About Being Stepfather To Lily Allen’s Kids After Spending His Life Being “Very Against” Having Children

David also revealed that one of Lily’s daughters thought he was the family’s new assistant when they were first introduced.

By
Stephanie Soteriou
by Stephanie Soteriou

BuzzFeed Staff

Before Stranger Things star David Harbour met his now-wife Lily Allen back in 2019, he had committed to a life of being happily child-free.

David Harbour wearing a tuxedo and bow tie at the 70th Emmy Awards with NBC logos in the background
Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images

However, when the two tied the knot in a Las Vegas ceremony in 2020, David officially became stepfather to Lily’s two children with her ex Sam Cooper, Ethel, now 12, and Marnie, who is now 11.

Lily Allen and David Harbour pose on a red carpet with two children. Lily wears a sleeveless dress, and David wears a decorated suit with embroidered designs
Arturo Holmes / WireImage

The family currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and David appears to be an incredibly involved stepdad. He occasionally posts photos with the girls to his Instagram page, and even took one of them to a Taylor Swift concert last year. 


On her podcast, Miss Me?, Lily regularly shares sweet anecdotes involving David and the girls, and recently revealed that he packed their luggage for summer camp himself and drove it from New York to Boston when Lily’s flight was dramatically delayed. 


But while they get along famously now, David previously admitted that the girls haven’t always given him an easy ride. 

During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, David said that Ethel once referred to him as “some guy” when she got annoyed that her little sister was calling him “dad” instead of “David.”

“The older one got very upset with that, which I understand, and said: ‘He's not our dad, he's not our dad,’” David explained at the time. “And the younger one was like: ‘Well, what is he? He’s kind of our dad? He's kind of our stepdad?’ And the older one said: ‘He's just some guy in our lives.’”

“I was like, ‘I need to marry this woman because the emotional fallout…’” David added. “It’s like my favorite thing I’ve ever been called.”

Thankfully, Ethel was on board when the time came for David to propose, with the actor revealing that she and Marnie actively encouraged him to pop the question.

And David has now opened up some more about his sweet relationship with his stepdaughters, and revealed his seriously emotional reaction to the first time that they met.

David Harbour smiles while standing in front of a Comic-Con International backdrop. He is wearing a casual short-sleeve, striped shirt
Gilbert Flores / Variety via Getty Images

David stepped in for his wife for Thursday’s episode of Miss Me?, and enjoyed a seriously candid conversation with her best friend and cohost, Miquita Oliver.


Early on the chat, Miquita asked David how he likes being a stepdad, and he replied: “I love it. It’s truly the most surprising thing, and enjoyable thing, I’ve ever done.”


“I never wanted kids,” he then admitted. “I’ve been through the wringer in a lot of ways in my life, and also genetically, I'm the last boy in my family, so the Harbour name will die with me, which I thought was very… I kind of like that, I have a real fetish about, like: Let's end this bloodline so the genealogy stops!” 


“I’ve also lived sort of an artistic, which in my mind is kind of a child-like, life,” David went on. “Running around and doing things and kind of following my impulse a lot, and that doesn't really mesh well with children. I think that I was very against having kids, and then I met Lily.”


“We dated for a little bit, and I remember there was a day when she said: ‘I want you to meet the kids,’ and I was ready. We were at that stage where we were in love and all that stuff,” he continued, detailing that he met the girls at a famous upmarket restaurant called The Wolseley in London.

“I remember her saying something to the kids like: ‘This guy might be a big part of our lives,’ and I think Marnie said later on that she thought I was going to be her new assistant, and I kind of am,” David laughed.

“But I do remember meeting the kids, and having breakfast with the kids, and being scared, and then almost immediately falling in love with them, like, in love with them, and feeling that thing that people talk about when they have kids, like: Wow, I want to take care of you beyond myself, I would do anything for you, give you anything,” he poignantly added.

“There was just an immediate sort of love that I had for them that was so unique,” David went on. “Just their innocent little faces looking up at you, just confused. They were, like, 6 and 7 at the time. That really pushed me over the edge.”

“I was like: Wow, this is something so rare, this is like a family, kind of, a pre-made family,” he continued. “I don't have to have the kids myself, they don't have to carry my name, I can just help these people grow up and give them Starbucks and Taylor Swift merch, give them Zara and Chick-fil-A.”

David previously drew parallels between his personal experience of becoming a father and that of his Stranger Things character, Jim Hopper.

Winona Ryder, Millie Bobby Brown, and David Harbour in "Stranger Things"
Curtis Baker/©Netflix / courtesy Everett Collection

For context, in Season 1 of the show, Hopper reluctantly becomes a father figure to Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown.


Speaking on the That Scene with Dan Patrick podcast, David said: “The show sort of opened my heart in a lot of different ways, and one of the ways that it did was it started to make me realize how thin my existence was without a family." 


"I feel like there was something in Hopper that had a deep need for family," he went on. "And there was something in me that had it, too, but that I wasn't even aware of."

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