Artist News Releases

Lana Del Rey criticised for swipe at Beyonce, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj and more

By | Published on Friday 22 May 2020

Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey has drawn criticism for an Instagram post announcing her new album in which she slated various other female artists – largely women of colour.

She begins her statement: “Now that Doja Cat, Ariana, Camila, Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyonce have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, etc – can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money – or whatever I want – without being crucified or saying that I’m glamorising abuse?”

“I’m fed up with female writers and alt singers saying that I glamorise abuse, when in reality I’m just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all are now seeing are very prevalent emotionally abusive relationships all over the world”, she goes on.

“I’m not not a feminist”, she adds. “But there has to be a place in feminism for women who look and act like me – the kind of woman who says no but men hear yes – the kind of women who are slated mercilessly for being their authentic, delicate selves, the kind of women who get their own stories and voices taken away from them by stronger women or by men who hate women”.

“Anyways”, she concludes, “none of this has anything to do about much but I’ll be detailing some of my feelings in my next two books of poetry … and I’m sure there will be tinges of what I’ve been pondering in my new album that comes out 5 Sep”.

So, that was all actually an album announcement? Female musicians often rightly complain of being pitted against each other by the media, as if there’s only room for one of them. Here Lana Del Rey is apparently doing it herself.

What, exactly is prompting this now is unclear, other than that she’s apparently working on new material that has put this on her mind. Perhaps we will understand more when she releases the follow-up to last year’s critically lauded ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ in, as she says, September.



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