Lily Allen backtracks on claims tax bill meant she had to sell Cotswolds house

Singer Lily Allen has backtracked on claims she had to sell her house to cover a tax bill.

The Hard Out Here singer put her home in Cranham in the Cotswolds on sale earlier in the year and wrote in a recent tweet, which she has now deleted, that, "I've had a tough couple of years. I'm having to sell my home to pay my tax bill."

On Sunday, the 31-year-old admitted she had paid a "large tax bill" but said a story in the Mail on Sunday that claimed she had been forced to sell her house to do so "doesn't add up".

She replied to one follower who suggested she had been avoiding paying tax: "If that was the case the headline would be about me not paying tax. It isn't, because that would be untrue.

When he continued to disagree, she wrote: "Put it this way, as far as I'm aware I have no outstanding tax bill, and I still own the house. So It doesn't add up."

Another follower asked if that meant the story was a lie, to which Allen admitted, "Well, not quite, I did pay a large tax bill and I am selling my house."

Allen said she had put on the market the Gloucestershire home, which she bought for a reported £3 million in 2010, "because I'm moving to London full time."

She had previously lived in the six-bedroom house with husband Sam Cooper, and daughters Ethel, four, and Marnie, three.