Ahead of the 2018 Mercury Prize winner being announced tonight, nominee Lily Allen has said that, if she emerges victorious, it might help to change the “caricature image” the press and public currently hold of her.

Allen’s fourth studio album No Shame is one of the 12 nominated albums for the prestigious annual award, alongside the likes of Noel Gallagher, Wolf Alice, Florence & The Machine, Jorja Smith and Everything Everything. The overall winner will be announced tonight (Thursday 20th September) at a ceremony at London’s Roundhouse.

The singer told Sky News this week that simply being nominated has helped her be taken more seriously as an artist – a side of her that “gets lost a lot of the time”.

Lily AllenLily Allen performing live in August 2018

“There is a caricature version of myself which is portrayed in the mainstream press, and the artist part of me gets lost a lot of the time,” the 33 year old told Sky News. “Already being nominated has helped with that immensely, but to win would just be amazing.”

More: Lily Allen confesses to romp with married Liam Gallagher almost 10 years ago

“When things started not to go to plan with my third album [2014's Sheezus], I felt like a massive failure – not just for myself, but that I’d let everybody else around me down. That was a real struggle,” Allen continued.

“This album has been about figuring out what my intentions are with this work. It wasn’t really to get on the radio or brand endorsements. It was about explaining how I felt and putting that to music and I feel like I’ve achieved that.”

It comes the same week that mother-of-two Allen releases her first memoir, a tell-all titled ‘My Thoughts Exactly’.

Earlier this month, while on the promotional trail for her book, she took the music industry to task over sexual abuse, claiming that she was once sexually assaulted by a record producer as she slept, and saying that there are unchecked practices and attitudes that “allow and sometimes even endorse toxic behaviour by men towards women.”

More: All the Mercury Prize winning albums, ranked from worst to best