Photo Bomb: Police ‘Breached Protocol’ With Lily Allen Handcuff Pic

On Sunday, Lily Allen convinced police escorts to place her in handcuffs for a staged photo at the Gold Coast airport in Australia prior to her performance at the Splendour in the Grass festival. Now, authorities are investigating the incident, claiming the officers breached standard protocol, according to Billboard.

Top 50 Tweeters in Music: Lily Allen

“#uhoh,” the singer tweeted over the weekend, along with a now-deleted Instagram link of the photo, which pictured Allen kneeling as an officer cuffed her hands behind her back. Before being removed, the photo had been “liked” over 7,700 times. 

“At her request, members involved placed open handcuffs for a photo opportunity,” an Australian Federal Police spokesman told the New Zealand Herald. “It appears the members involved were caught in the moment and standard protocol were breached. It is subject to internal processes.”

According to The Guardian, Gold Coast City Councillor Dawn Crichlow spoke out against the prank-gone-sour to Fairfax radio. “I don’t appreciate a photo of. . . police playing around with their handcuffs. It’s bad that the federal police allowed this to happen and they should be hauled over the coals. Just a bit of fun would have been to give her the police cap and have a photo taken like that – that would have been fun.”

Allen released her latest LP, Sheezus, back in May. Earlier this month, she released a music video for the breezy synth-pop jam “URL Badman,” which takes aim at Internet gossip writers and web trolls.

The singer recently talked to Rolling Stone about the song’s personal inspiration. “I wrote that after I put out the video for ‘Hard Out Here’ and everyone said I was racist,” she said. “I was really alarmed by that reaction. I stand by that video, and I know what my intention was, and I’m sorry that people interpreted it in a different way. A lot of that negative stuff came from females and the feminist blogger scene. What really pissed me off was the misogynistic, hipster, male bloggers that went after me in a completely different way. And I just thought, ‘Fuck you, I’m going to write a song about you.'”