After sparking major controversy last week with an allegedly “racist” social media post, Lana Del Rey has taken to Instagram in an attempt to defend herself, once again, from a continuously amassing wave of criticism.
Headlined with the caption “Nobody gets to tell your story,” the 34-year-old pop singer shared a six-minute IGTV video on Monday morning where she tried to explain her controversial rant, while also adding yet again that she’s “definitely not racist.”
In the initial post, shared on May 21, Del Rey said other female pop stars — singling out primarily Black women — have been getting No. 1 singles for singing about “being sexy” and “wearing no clothes” without judgement, whereas, she is supposedly always “crucified” for “glamourizing abuse” when trying to create “embodied” music about “feeling beautiful.”
Del Rey’s lengthy message reads, in part: “Now that Doja Cat, Ariana (Grande), Camila (Cabello), Cardi B, Kehlani, Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, f—ing, 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 without being crucified, or saying that I’m glamourizing abuse?”
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Though the brooding pop singer said the basis of her message was just to defend herself from the “female writers” and “alt. singers” who have continued to criticize her “minor lyrical exploration” in the last decade, many of her followers couldn’t help but feel like Del Rey was simply being “racist” by “targeting” black artists like Doja Cat, Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé.
The five-time Grammy Award nominee also expressed concern that there simply isn’t a “place in feminism” for women “who look and act” like her, which many took as another racial attack against women of colour.
In her new video message, however, Del Rey stressed that her rant was merely “advocacy for fragility” in the “feminist movement” and should not have been turned into “a race war.”
“I don’t wanna beat a dead horse, and I don’t wanna go on and on about this post thing,” she said at the beginning of the message, “but I want to remind you that in that post was about the need for fragility in the feminist movement.”
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Del Rey attempted to elaborate on her “questionable” words further in her video.
She reiterated: “When I mentioned women that look like me, I didn’t mean white like me. I mean the kind of women who other people might not believe, because they think, ‘Oh, well look at her, she f—ing deserves (abuse)’ or whatever.
“There are a lot of people like that.”
The New York City-born star said she thinks it’s “sad” that the women she mentioned could get away with singing about “dancing for money or whatever,” but she couldn’t.
“(It’s) the same stuff that I’ve been singing about and chronicling for 13 years,” said Del Rey. “The difference is, when I get on the pole, people call me a whore, but when (FKA) Twigs gets on the pole, it’s art.
“That’s why I’m in that echelon. Yes, they are my friends, peers and contemporaries.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t add one 100 per cent caucasian person into the mix of the women that I admire. It really says more about you than it does about me,” added Del Rey.
“What’s interesting is that the very first time I decide to tell you anything about my life, 200,000 hateful, spiteful comments come in, my phone number (gets) leaked and (I get) comments like ‘You f—ing white b—h.’ It’s the opposite of the spirit of an advocate. It’s what causes fragility, but it’s not gonna stop me. Period.
“I’m not the enemy, and I’m definitely not racist. So don’t get it twisted. Nobody gets to tell your story except for you. God bless and yeah … f–k off if you don’t like the post.”
The Summertime Sadness hit-maker first denied the accusations of racism last Wednesday in a series of lengthy Instagram comments where she claimed that the artists she previously called out are actually her “favourite singers.”
“This is sad to make (my post) about a WOC (women of colour) issue when I’m talking about my favorite singers,” Del Rey wrote in the comment section of the controversial post.
For the most part, however, her attempts to defend herself proved unsuccessful, as many continued to dub her “racist” in the Instagram comment section, while also calling her out for being “privileged” because she’s “white” and a “cop dater.”
Del Rey, again, tried to set the record straight in a further post on May 22, where she regurgitated many of the same points she had already made and continued to make in her recent video.
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She claimed that her overall issue was not a “race war,” but with “female critics and female alt. artists who are disassociated from their own fragility and sexuality and berate more sexually liberated like (herself) and the women (she) mentioned.”
“I’m sorry that the folks who — I can only assume are super Trump/Pence supporters, hyper liberals or flip-flopping headline grabbing critics — can’t read (what I wrote) and want to make it a race war,” the musician wrote in the follow-up post.
In the midst of her non-apologetic video, Del Rey managed to subtly squeeze in the title of her upcoming followup to 2019’s critically acclaimed Norman F—ing Rockwell! — which she previously suggested will be released on Sept. 5.
Though she didn’t provide fans with any additional details, Del Rey revealed that the seventh studio album will be called Chemtrails Over the Country Club.
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