59 Fun Facts About Lana Del Rey

In 2024 Lana Del Rey married Jeremy Dufrene, an alligator-tour boat captain, in which US state?

Louisiana. The pair first met in 2019, when she took one of his swamp tours, and they married at the bayou in Des Allemands where he works.

In which upstate New York town did Lana Del Rey grow up from the age of one?

Lake Placid. Her parents left advertising careers in New York City for the Adirondack village, twice a Winter Olympics host, when she was a baby.

Why did Lana Del Rey's parents send her to a Connecticut boarding school as a teenager?

To get sober. She has said she was drinking heavily by her early teens; boarding school was not a complete cure, but she has been sober since she was 18.

What did Del Rey major in at Fordham University?

Philosophy. Music was already taking over: she signed her first record deal while still a student, then finished the degree in 2008.

Lana Del Rey's uncle taught her which instrument during a year on Long Island?

Guitar. She began writing songs soon after and took them to open-mic nights and clubs around New York.

Lana Del Rey spent her first record advance on what kind of New Jersey home?

A trailer. She was still a senior at Fordham when indie label 5 Points signed her, and she moved to a New Jersey mobile home park and began recording with producer David Kahne.

The 'Lana' in Lana Del Rey's stage name is said to be a tribute to which actress?

Lana Turner, the Old Hollywood star. Accounts of 'Del Rey' differ, from a Ford sedan sold in 1980s Brazil to a Los Angeles neighbourhood; she said the name evoked seaside glamour for her and her Cuban friends in Miami.

How was Lana Del Rey's name spelled on her self-titled debut album, released in 2010 and quickly withdrawn?

Lana Del Ray, with an 'a': she had not yet settled on the spelling. The album was sold only online and vanished within months, when she and her new managers bought her out of the deal.

Which single, posted with a homemade clip of vintage footage and webcam shots, was Lana Del Rey's viral breakthrough in 2011?

Video Games. She said she only posted it because it was her favourite and it was never meant to be the single; the response won her a record deal and, later, an Ivor Novello award.

Which songwriter co-wrote Lana Del Rey's 2011 breakthrough single with her?

Justin Parker, an English songwriter she teamed up with after moving to London. The song made his name as well as hers, and he went on to co-write several more tracks on Born to Die.

Lana Del Rey's January 2012 performance on which TV show drew widespread criticism for being vocally shaky?

Saturday Night Live. NBC anchor Brian Williams called it one of the worst outings in the show's history, yet the album she was promoting became one of 2012's five best sellers worldwide.

Lana Del Rey's Born to Die debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 behind which album?

Adele's 21, then a year old and in its 19th week at number one. Born to Die sold 77,000 copies that week and topped the UK chart, but it has never reached number one in the US.

Lana Del Rey's Born to Die set which Billboard 200 record in December 2025?

Longest-charting album by a woman: that month it logged its 618th week on the chart, close to 12 years in all, despite never having spent a single week at number one.

Which DJ's remix made Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness a US top-ten hit and won a Best Remixed Recording Grammy?

Cedric Gervais, a French DJ. The Grammy went to him alone, because the remix award honours the remixer and not the original artist, so her first US top-ten hit left Del Rey without a trophy.

Lana Del Rey's Young and Beautiful features on the soundtrack of which 2013 film?

The Great Gatsby. Director Baz Luhrmann worked on the song with her, and it brought Del Rey a Grammy nomination for best song written for visual media.

What was the lead single of Lana Del Rey's 2012 EP Paradise?

Ride, produced by Rick Rubin. Del Rey scripted its 10-minute video, in which she plays a drifter riding with a biker gang, and premiered it at a cinema screening in Santa Monica.

Lana Del Rey's cover of Blue Velvet was recorded for an advertising campaign by which retailer?

H&M, which made her the face of its autumn 2012 collection. Critics called the eerie, low-lit advert 'Lynchian', after David Lynch, whose film Blue Velvet took its name from the same 1950s song.

Which 2013 musical short film, set to songs from her Paradise EP, did Lana Del Rey write and star in?

Tropico. She had billed the Bible-themed film as her 'farewell project', then used its Hollywood premiere to announce the title of her next album.

Which rock frontman produced most of Lana Del Rey's 2014 album at his Nashville studio?

Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. A get-together planned for a couple of days at his Easy Eye studio grew into a whole album, with Del Rey singing live in front of a seven-piece band.

Which album gave Lana Del Rey her first number one on the US Billboard 200?

Ultraviolence, in June 2014. Born to Die had stalled at number two, and only months before the follow-up was announced she was telling interviewers she didn't hear another album in her.

Lana Del Rey's cover of Once Upon a Dream was recorded for which Disney film?

Maleficent. Del Rey was reportedly hand-picked by its star, Angelina Jolie, to rework the old Sleeping Beauty song, and her version made its debut in a TV spot aired during the Grammys.

Which two acts opened for Lana Del Rey on 2015's Endless Summer Tour?

Courtney Love and Grimes. Love teased the team-up on Twitter and played the first run of shows, the Hollywood Bowl among them, and Grimes took over once the tour moved east.

Which of these was a single from Lana Del Rey's 2015 album Honeymoon?

High by the Beach, whose video ends with Del Rey fetching a rocket launcher from the sand and blowing up the paparazzi helicopter that has been hovering outside her house.

Lana Del Rey sang lead vocals on Stargirl Interlude, a track on which artist's 2016 album?

The Weeknd, on Starboy. She also co-wrote and sang on Party Monster from the same record, and he returned the favour months later by guesting on the title track of her next album.

Which veteran rock singer guests on Lana Del Rey's 2017 album Lust for Life?

Stevie Nicks, who co-wrote and sings on Beautiful People Beautiful Problems. Del Rey felt the album needed another woman's voice, and said Nicks was the one name she kept coming back to.

In January 2018 Lana Del Rey said which band was suing her over similarities between Get Free and one of its songs?

Radiohead, over their hit Creep. Their publisher denied there was any lawsuit, though it did want a writing credit; Creep itself credits the writers of The Air That I Breathe after a similar claim.

Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019) was the first Lana Del Rey album made with which producer?

Jack Antonoff, who co-wrote and produced most of it with her. The partnership stuck: he went on to work on her next studio album and on her spoken-word poetry record.

Lana Del Rey's Norman Fucking Rockwell! lost both its 2020 Grammy nominations, Album and Song of the Year, to which artist?

Billie Eilish, who took all four major categories that night with her debut album and Bad Guy. Rolling Stone later ranked Norman Fucking Rockwell! among the 500 greatest albums of all time anyway.

Whose grandson poses with Lana Del Rey on a sailboat on the cover of Norman Fucking Rockwell!?

Jack Nicholson's grandson Duke. Del Rey's sister, Chuck Grant, took the photograph, and the album title is lettered across it in the style of a comic-book panel.

Doin' Time, a single from Lana Del Rey's Norman Fucking Rockwell!, is a cover of a song by which band?

Sublime. Del Rey, who said not a day goes by without her playing one of their songs, recorded it for a documentary about the band; its video pays homage to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

Don't Call Me Angel, from the 2019 Charlie's Angels soundtrack, teamed Lana Del Rey with which two singers?

Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus. Director Elizabeth Banks said the theme was inspired by Independent Women, the Destiny's Child hit from the 2000 Charlie's Angels film; in the video the trio wear black angel wings.

What is the title of the poetry collection Lana Del Rey published in 2020?

Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass. She first planned to bind it herself and sell it for a dollar, 'because my thoughts are priceless', before a major publisher took it on.

Which sound did critics hear on Lana Del Rey's 2021 album Chemtrails over the Country Club?

Folk and Americana: Pitchfork called it her folksiest record. It closes with a cover of Joni Mitchell's For Free, and she sings a country duet with Nikki Lane along the way.

Lana Del Rey's Blue Banisters was first announced in March 2021 under which title?

Rock Candy Sweet, announced on Instagram for June 1, a day after her previous album came out. Within weeks she had renamed it Blue Banisters, and it finally arrived in October.

On the original version of Taylor Swift's Snow on the Beach, what did featured guest Lana Del Rey sing?

Backing vocals only, and by her own choice: Swift had wanted her to sing the whole second verse. After fans asked for more, Swift released a 'More Lana Del Rey' version in May 2023.

Snow on the Beach, Lana Del Rey's number four hit with Taylor Swift, appears on which Swift album?

Midnights. Swift said the title pictures two people falling for each other at the same moment, as unlikely as snow on a beach; its number four debut was Del Rey's highest Hot 100 peak through 2025.

The tunnel in Lana Del Rey's Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd lies beneath which city?

Long Beach, California. The Jergins Tunnel once let pedestrians cross under the busy road to the sand before it was sealed off; some fans had guessed the title meant Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Which Lana Del Rey single did Rolling Stone add to its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2024?

A&W, a seven-minute epic that the magazine added when it updated the list. The title borrows the name of the root beer brand as shorthand for 'American Whore'.

In July 2023 Lana Del Rey was photographed working a shift at which restaurant chain in Alabama?

Waffle House, in Florence, Alabama, a town she had name-checked months earlier in her song Paris, Texas. She poured coffee and chatted to customers in full uniform, with a 'Lana' name tag.

Lana Del Rey's Grammy-nominated Candy Necklace features which pianist?

Jon Batiste, who also has an interlude named after him on the same album. The pop duo nod sat beside Album and Song of the Year nominations, yet Del Rey went home that night without a win.

Lana Del Rey's country album, first announced as Lasso and then The Right Person Will Stay, was retitled what in August 2025?

Stove. She told W magazine the delay came from adding six songs that proved 'more autobiographical than I thought'; she aimed for a release in January 2026, a date that also passed.

Which rapper joined Lana Del Rey on the July 2024 single Tough?

Quavo, of Migos. The pair teased the Western-trap duet for weeks and timed its release for the eve of the Fourth of July, announcing it with the caption 'Tough 4th of July'.

At which festival did Lana Del Rey resume performing with a headlining slot in 2024?

Coachella, where she headlined both Fridays a decade after her first appearance there. A year later she was back on the same Indio polo grounds to try out her country songs at Stagecoach.

Lana Del Rey's 2026 song First Light is the theme for what?

A James Bond video game, 007 First Light, written with veteran Bond composer David Arnold. It made up for 2015, when she wrote a song for a Bond film only to have the producers turn it down.

Which rapper played John F. Kennedy opposite Lana Del Rey's Jackie in her National Anthem video?

A$AP Rocky. The concept was Del Rey's own: she plays both Jackie and Marilyn Monroe in a home-movie Camelot that ends by restaging the 1963 assassination.

What did Rolling Stone UK call Lana Del Rey in 2023?

Greatest American songwriter of the 21st century: its cover story found her inspired again after a decade of feeling flat about the critical response to her debut, Born to Die.

A year after winning the Brits' breakthrough prize, Lana Del Rey took which award at the 2013 ceremony?

International Female Solo Artist. Billboard called it a surprise that she beat Taylor Swift, who performed that night; Del Rey thanked her label for 'helping turn my life into a work of art'.

Lana Del Rey said she lowered her singing voice to gain what?

Credibility. She said she used to sing much higher but felt people weren't taking her seriously; because of how she looked, she feared being written off as 'some airhead singer'.

Which 1999 film's soundtrack did Lana Del Rey cite as a partial inspiration for Born to Die?

American Beauty. In the same 2012 interviews she named the first two Godfather films as her favourites and said she hoped to move into film work one day and 'stay there'.

Performing as Lizzy Grant in 2008, how did Lana Del Rey describe her own music?

Hawaiian glam metal. She traced the Hawaiian part to Elvis and the rest to an ex-boyfriend who played her Van Halen and Poison; record labels disliked the tag because the songs sounded nothing like metal.

What did Lana Del Rey say thieves took from her car in 2022, along with her laptop?

Camcorders and hard drives, all in a backpack she had left in her parked car. She wiped the laptop remotely, even though it held her only working copy of a new poetry manuscript.

In which New York City borough was Lana Del Rey born in 1985?

Manhattan, where both her parents worked in advertising. The family left when she was a year old, and the singer whose songs are steeped in West Coast imagery spent her whole childhood in the East.

Under which of these names did Lana Del Rey perform in New York clubs before settling on her stage name?

Sparkle Jump Rope Queen. Another early billing was Lizzy Grant and the Phenomena; she said she kept looking for a name she could 'shape the music towards'.

Which carmaker chose Lana Del Rey as the face of its new sports car at the 2012 Paris Motor Show?

Jaguar, launching the F-Type. She then wrote Burning Desire as the title song of Desire, the firm's short film for the car, which starred Damian Lewis and was made with Ridley Scott's company.

Which university launched a course on Lana Del Rey in 2022, months after offering one on Taylor Swift?

New York University, at its Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. The two-credit class, taught by journalist Kathy Iandoli, looked at how her melancholy sound shifted pop and at her relationship to feminism.

Which football club's anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone, did Lana Del Rey perform for a 2020 documentary?

Liverpool. The anthem began as a show tune in the 1945 musical Carousel; sales of her recording went to the club's foundation to fund inclusion and disability football programmes in the city.

Under what working title was Lana Del Rey's Chemtrails over the Country Club first announced in 2019?

White Hot Forever, the name she gave on the day her previous album came out, promising a surprise release within about a year. A sixteen-week vinyl delay then pushed it into 2021 under its new title.

Which director's Hollywood Walk of Fame star did Lana Del Rey help unveil in August 2019?

Guillermo del Toro. She unveiled it alongside J.J. Abrams in the week that Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark came out: del Toro produced the film, and her cover of Season of the Witch plays over its credits.

Which HBO series premiered Lana Del Rey's song Watercolor Eyes in January 2022?

Euphoria. The song came out two days before its episode aired, as the first single from a second-season soundtrack that also carried tracks by Tove Lo, James Blake and the show's star, Zendaya.