Tragic Details About Lana Del Rey's Life

Lana Del Rey stands out among her peers with her moody lyrics, throwback melodies, and unique voice. Furthermore, her aesthetic has run the gamut from flower crowns to biker chick chic to old-school glamour. Del Rey has an extremely devoted fan base and millions of dollars in album sales to show for it, but becoming a pop star of her magnitude has not been an easy ride for the chanteuse.

Del Rey began her career performing under her given name, Lizzy Grant, and had a soft-spoken, folk singer vibe. Although the real reason she changed her name was to have a more uniform image, changing her name and her sound led to accusations of her being a fraud, a rich girl who was faking angst for the sake of record sales. The singer persisted in the face of her critics, but when she found fame, her life became even more difficult. Plus, she never had to invent a dark side, as she'd known her fair share of struggle beginning in her early teens.

From hackers and stalkers to online trolls and false facts you thought were true, Del Rey has experienced the negative aspects of human nature as well, becoming the target of theft and attempted violence. When she wasn't being criticized for a lackluster performance, she found herself the target of body-shaming by strangers on social media. Even her marriage has come under scrutiny for various reasons. But Del Rey has risen above it all and remains one of the most popular pop stars of her time. Read on to learn more about the tragic details of Lana Del Rey's life.

Many pop stars begin to go down a dangerous road of partying too much once they become famous. In Lana Del Rey's case, she began drinking and using drugs when she was still a teenager, long before she rose to fame. Del Rey was only fourteen years old when her parents sent her to the Kent School in Connecticut in order to help curb her alcohol use. "My parents were worried, I was worried," the singer told GQ. "I knew it was a problem when I liked it more than I liked doing anything else."

Del Rey admitted that, as a teenager, she enjoyed drinking alone and would revel in the fact that she felt she had a dark side. Eventually, it became much less of a glamorous idea and something more concerning. "... the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it," she explained. Del Rey began trying drugs as well, as a form of escapism. Boarding school was not having the desired effect, so the next step was a stint in rehab, which set her on a better path.

But it was her time spent helping others that really seemed to solidify Del Rey's sobriety. "I moved back to New York and worked at an outreach program for drug and alcohol addicts in Brooklyn.," she told GQ. She continued her outreach work even after achieving fame and looked back on her own substance issues with regret. "It was horrific," she revealed. "It was the worst thing that ever happened to me."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Lana Del Rey's 2012 album, "Born to Die," was a huge hit with fans and critics alike, elevating the singer to a new level of stardom and exposure. But while Del Rey should have been celebrating her new success, a disturbing incident left her reeling. A hacker somehow accessed Del Rey's computer, which contained personal information like health and financial records, photographs and unreleased songs.

It was the loss of the songs that Del Rey mourned the most, telling The Guardian that the hacker stole "All 211 of them." One song in particular was meant to appear on a future album but was instead leaked online. It was a source of creative frustration for Del Rey, who told Nylon, "When 'Black Beauty' got leaked, I was a little bit discouraged, because I usually focus an entire record around one song, or one phrase, or one title, like...'Black Beauty.'"

Many newer artists gain a larger fan base after appearing as the musical guest of "Saturday Night Live," but this was probably not the case with Lana Del Rey. The singer performed two songs, "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans," on an episode of the show in January 2012 but appeared uncomfortable onstage. Her vocals were a bit uneven and it seemed as though her dreamy sound was not a good fit for the live studio audience format of "SNL."

The performances struck the wrong chord with viewers who took to the internet in droves to criticize Del Rey, with posts on X, formerly Twitter, saying things like, "It's time for SNL to get a real band on," and others calling the singer "basically a drunk Julia Roberts trying to remember her own lyrics" (via Entertainment Weekly). It wasn't just anonymous viewers making comments either. Actor and musician Juliette Lewis had her own harsh take, posting, "Wow watching this 'singer' on SNL is like watching a 12-year-old in their bedroom when they're pretending to sing and perform..."

In 2023, Del Rey spoke about doing another TV appearance someday, as at that time she'd only done two, "SNL" and "Late Show with David Letterman." The singer told The Hollywood Reporter, "Maybe now, even if I didn't feel confident, I would do it anyway."

It seemed the pitfalls of fame were getting to Lana Del Rey, as a YouTube video shot by a fan showed the singer crying while performing in Dublin in 2013. Del Rey spoke before launching into her hit song "Video Games," telling the crowd, "...I just wanted to say, you know a lot of people have said a lot of things about me... I really appreciate all of my friends and all of my fans..." Amid roaring applause from the crowd, Del Rey wiped away tears and asked the crowd to sing with her.

She later explained that it wasn't just overwhelming emotion that made her tear up; it was that she'd been dealing with a difficult illness at the time. "I'd been sick on tour for about two years with this medical anomaly that doctors couldn't figure out," she revealed to The Fader. Del Rey admitted to feeling sick much of the time, but there had been no actual diagnosis. It seemed as though her illness and the mystery surrounding it had taken a toll on Del Rey's mental state as well, as she described her tearful performance. "I thought it was sad to be in Ireland singing for people who really cared when I wasn't sure if I did," she shared.

It may not come as a surprise to fans of Lana Del Rey who are familiar with her song lyrics that the singer seems to have a preoccupation with death. She did, after all, title one of her albums "Born to Die," which featured a hit song of the same name. But some of Del Rey's comments surrounding death have been particularly disturbing, as evidenced by an interview she once had with The Guardian. The singer spoke about a few of her musical idols, Kurt Cobain, who died by suicide in 1994, and Amy Winehouse, who died from alcohol poisoning in 2011, then confessed, "I wish I was dead already." When pressed as to whether she really meant it, Del Rey doubled down, insisting, "I do! I don't want to have to keep doing this. But I am."

In the same interview, Del Rey described an upsetting experience having to do with the death of another music legend, Lou Reed. Del Rey and Reed were supposed to collaborate on her song "Brooklyn Baby," but it never came to pass, despite her flying to New York for a meeting with him. "I took the red eye, touched down at 7 a.m... and two minutes later he died," she revealed.

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Perhaps the reason that Lana Del Rey has seemed to, at times, glamorize death is because the idea frightened her so much as a child. In fact, the singer cites a childhood fear of death as the impetus for the panic and anxiety she has experienced throughout her life. She recalled a time when she was four years old, watching TV with her parents and seeing a character get killed. "...I turned to my parents and said, 'Are we all going to die?' They said 'Yes,' and I was totally distraught!" Del Rey told Billboard. She subsequently sought help from a therapist to deal with her anxiety, and credits small things like taking walks, swimming, and making lists with helping her cope in her day-to-day life.

During a conversation with producer Jack Antonoff for Interview, Del Rey explained that those close to her understand her mental health struggles, and that she's not shy about expressing herself. "I don't ever feel bad for saying to someone, 'I'm having a panic attack because of what you've done,'" she said. The singer also voiced frustration about critics who had pegged her as a phony and suggested she'd created a persona much different from her actual self. "...people had so much to say about in terms of, 'She's just feigning emotional fragility,'" Del Rey said. "And it's like, 'Well, not really.'"

While Lana Del Rey has garnered legions of dedicated and loving fans over the years, she has been no stranger to the dark side of fame, including becoming the target of stalkers. In 2015, a man broke into Del Rey's home and took pictures of himself on her balcony, which landed him in jail on stalking charges a year later. Kansas native 19-year-old Zachary Self was found by construction workers in Del Rey's home in Malibu and had been stalking her online for some time leading up to the break-in. According to friends, Self believed Del Rey was sending him secret messages through her songs and on social media, and thought he shared a spiritual connection with her.

In 2018, Del Rey experienced yet another terrifying incident when a different man was accused of threatening to kidnap her. According to police in Orlando, Florida, a 43-year-old man named Michael Hunt was apprehended while in possession of a knife and a ticket to a Del Rey concert. Hunt had taken to social media beforehand to post what the police called "cryptic and threatening" messages regarding the singer, and was arrested on charges of aggravated stalking with a credible threat and attempted kidnapping with a weapon. Del Rey commented on the incident in a since-deleted post on X, writing, "If you bring weapons to the show with plans to use them and [you're] posting about it -the police will probably know about it before I do..." (via Vice).

Being in the public eye comes with a certain measure of attention from fans and media alike, but for Lana Del Rey, that attention often went too far. Her privacy has not only been compromised; she has been the victim of multiple thefts over the years. Aside from hackers gaining access to her personal files, the singer has had physical items stolen, too.

In 2018, Del Rey announced that she and her sister, Caroline "Chuck" Grant, had family keepsakes taken from them, and that Grant's artwork had been stolen. "This week, family mementos including my sister's entire retrospective were taken," Del Rey posted on X, along with the plea that the thieves send back scans of Grant's work, no questions asked. "The work we lost can't be reproduced and exists nowhere but where it was," Del Rey wrote (via Page Six).

In 2022, Del Rey posted a video to let fans know that her backpack was stolen from her car. Inside the backpack were seriously valuable items, including video equipment and Del Rey's computer which contained new music and a book manuscript. "I had to remotely wipe the computer that had my 200-page book for Simon and Schuster — which I didn't have backed up on the cloud," the singer explained. But despite this obstacle, she planned to carry on. "I really want to persist and make the best art I can," Del Rey shared with fans.

Lana Del Rey is no stranger to controversy, and in 2020 she seemed to have brought it on herself after penning a seemingly unprompted Instagram post defending her reputation. In the post she spoke about wanting to sing her songs "...without being crucified or saying that I'm glamorizing abuse" (via X). She prefaced her statement by saying, "Now that Doja Cat, Ariana, Camila, Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, f***ing, cheating etc,..." The fact that all but one of the artists she name-checked were women of color came off to many as tone-deaf and racist.

Writer Ashley Reese called Del Rey's diatribe "mortifying" (via Jezebel), and Youtuber D'Angelo Wallace accused the singer of "...profiting off Black outrage to sell her album" (via YouTube). Del Rey, clearly upset that her statement was met with such overwhelming backlash, took to Instagram again, defending herself in a much more succinct post. "I f***ing love these singers and know them, that is why I mentioned them," she wrote, adding, "I would also like to have some of the same freedom of expression without judgement of hysteria" (via X).

In addition to her music, fans have idolized Lana Del Rey throughout her career for her cool-girl fashion sense. Del Rey has undergone a style evolution over the years, and her looks have always been part of her persona. Sadly, when the singer gained some weight over the course of the pandemic, many took the opportunity to comment. The public body-shaming of Del Rey was harsh, to say the least, with trolls posting things online such as "What happened to her?" (via Glamour). One since-deleted viral post on X showed before and after pics, declaring "This is worse than 9/11" (via News.com).

The focus on Del Rey's weight sparked many think pieces and conversations surrounding female bodies, but the singer did not address the body-shaming herself. During her 2024 Coachella performance, fans took note that Del Rey had shed some pounds and was looking more like her "Born to Die"-era self, but then she became the target of those wondering if she'd taken the popular weight-loss drug Ozempic to achieve her new figure. It seemed as though no matter her weight, like so many women in the public eye, she just couldn't win.

In May of 2024, Del Rey appeared in an Instagram post by DOGPOUND, the same gym where Taylor Swift works out. Del Rey is pictured sitting on the shoulders of personal trainer Kirk Myers, and the comments are full of fans showing their support for the singer and asking the gym to reveal her workout routine.

In September 2024, Lana Del Rey married alligator tour guide Jeremy Dufrene in his native Louisiana. The pair tied the knot in Des Allemandes, where they first met, in the bayou where Dufrene conducts swamp boat tours. While the wedding was undoubtedly a happy event, Del Rey and Dufrene's relationship has been the cause of some controversy. For one, the age gap between Dufrene and Del Rey is bigger than we thought. Dufrene is ten years older than Del Rey and already has three children from a previous marriage. An internet troll used this information to harass Del Rey online, posing as his daughter on X and pretending not to have known the couple were even dating.

While the poster was a fake, there was another person involved in Dufrene's life who did take issue with he and Del Rey's whirlwind romance. Before marrying the singer, Dufrene was engaged to Kelli Welsh, with whom he spent thirteen years. It was reported that since Del Rey moved into the home Dufrene and Welsh once shared, Welsh was no longer welcome there. A source told Daily Mail that Dufrene's ex-wife often visited the house, and explained, "...for Kelli to not be allowed does not make sense. Jeremy expressed that Del Rey was jealous of her because of their long history."

Amid the turmoil, Welsh spoke out about her former fiance and Del Rey's relationship, telling Daily Mail, "I am in shock because we were engaged for 12 years, and he got married after one month," adding, "But I am happy for him." Rumors about a rift between Del Rey and her husband's family also circulated in 2024.