There’s been a lot of focus on Lana Del Rey lately, no coincidence considering the recent release of her new album Ultraviolence, which has debuted at #1 on the ARIA Charts this week. Which would indicate that all the media attention of late on the ‘feminism is dull’ singer was worth it.
Except, it would seem, for that one interview where the 28-year-old claimed “I wish I was dead already…”
The headline-grabbing quote comes from a piece in The Guardian last week, where – when discussing idolised music heroes like Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse – Del Rey pronounced her disturbing death wish, adding when pushed: “I do! I don’t want to have to keep doing this… That’s just how I feel. If it wasn’t that way, then I wouldn’t say it. I would be scared if I knew [death] was coming, but …”
After the article (understandably) grabbed attention from music press all over, the ‘West Coast’ hit-maker took to Twitter to voice her displeasure with the piece, criticising both The Guardian and the journalist Tim Jonze of a “calculated” attack and “sinister ambitions” behind the interview.
The tweets were promptly deleted but (as always happens) not before somebody managed to screencap the posts (via MTV)
The ‘Alexis’ the singer is likely referring to is Alexis Petridis -who wrote a fairly positive Ultraviolence review for The Guardian – perhaps confusing him for Jonze, who actually conducted the interview.
Now Jonze has penned an opinion piece rallying back at Del Rey’s accusations, denying he was “leading” her to answer questions for the sake of a headline.
“Besides the fact Lana doesn’t remember who actually interviewed her, there are a number of things about her statement that sound a bit iffy to me,” writes Jonze.
“It’s not pleasant asking a pop star if she thinks the idea of dying young herself is attractive – it’s a dark question, but it’s not a leading one. She has every opportunity to say no,” he continues.
To further disprove his “sinister ambitions,” the journalist also provides audio from the controversial segment.
“She can hardly complain about the subject matter: she’d been talking about her icons all dying young, she named her debut album Born To Die and had spent much of the 50 minutes previous to this point telling me how miserable she was,” writes Jonze, though acknowledges Del Rey was “delightful company” during their 70 minute conversation.
Jonze acknowledges that Del Rey hasn’t targeted The Guardian for misquoting her, but concludes that the singer’s arguments were confused at best.
“Ultimately, the problem with Lana’s complaint is that she doesn’t seem to know what she’s actually complaining about. She’s not alleging that I made up her quotes, nor is she claiming that they’ve been ‘twisted’ or that we’ve printed them out of context. Instead she seems annoyed by the fact I wanted her to say interesting things and asked questions that caused her to do so. Well sorry, Lana, but that’s just me doing my job.”
