Lily Allen News

The British pop brat has been forced to postpone her U.S. tour and pull out of performing at the MTV Video Music Awards due to problems with her American work visa.

Officials unexpectedly revoked the singer's visa Aug. 5 due to concerns about her arrest in London earlier this summer stemming from a dustup with a paparazzo.

"The reinstatement process has proven lengthier than anticipated, thus preventing her tour from launching Sept. 6th in San Diego, California," the singer's rep said in a statement.

Allen, who is nominated for Best New Artist at the VMAs, issued a statement of her own expressing her regret over missing the awards ceremony on Sept. 9.

"I am so disappointed that I won't be able to come to the States at this time," Allen said. "I was really looking forward to playing these shows and being part of the Video Music Awards."

However, Allen was signing a different tune last weekend at the V Festival in Staffordshire, where she launched into an expletive-filled tirade against President George W. Bush and waxed indifferent about being barred from the States.

"I've been banned from America. That's nice. Oh well, that means I can't go back there. Good," she said onstage.

Despite her seemingly nonchalant stance on reentering the States, Allen later took to her MySpace page to clarify that she still considers the U.S. "a great place."

"Just because I hate George Bush doesn't mean I hate America," she wrote Monday. "I am really sad I can't be there for my commitments scheduled for the near future."

Allen isn't the only British hotshot to be forced to cancel her upcoming commitments. Rival chanteuse Amy Winehouse announced Tuesday that she, too, was calling off her North American tour slated to kick off next month in order to "address her health."

The singer is currently ensconced with her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, at the Causeway house on the Essex coast, where the couple claims to be on "retreat," as opposed to in rehab.