For years now, it has been claimed that Lana Del Rey grew up wealthy; A 2012 piece from The Guardian alleges, “Del Rey is in fact the daughter of a millionaire father who has backed her career.” Now, Del Rey has spoken out to deny that.
In an Instagram comment (as Pop Crave noted yesterday, October 18), Del Rey pushed back on the idea that she grew up rich, saying, “we had absolutely no money. And there ya go. that’s a little story the news loved to assign to me… that was back when they were allowed to just write lies about people. I grew up in a mountain town in a little house, and we struggled as much as everybody else in the town of 900, there is no other truth than that- if the story was true, I would own it just like I own my other issues. But I’m not gonna pretend like I can own what having money would’ve been like or felt like- until I made some when I was when I was 26. There are people who are well-known, who grew up rich – I’m not one of them.”
Lana Del Rey refutes rumors she grew up in a rich family:
“There are people who are well-known, who grew up rich – I’m not one of them.” pic.twitter.com/QVU7VbyjmB
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) October 18, 2023
In a Dazed profile from July, Rob Grant, Del Rey’s father, outlined his working history, saying, “I’ve had restaurants, boat-building companies, rustic furniture, advertising, the internet, real estate. And a lot of them I still have.” He also spoke about a successful ad campaign he spearheaded that landed him “a beautiful office of glass overlooking New York City,” and about bulk-buying domain names in the mid-’90s. As of 2012, Grant’s company operated 1,600 websites and owned around 800 domain names, according to Insider.
Grant, by the way, released his debut album, Lost At Sea, this summer.