14 DAY TRIAL // In her most recent interview, with British publication The Guardian, Lana Del Rey lamented how famous she’d become since her first album and literally said she would rather she was dead already because she was too sick of everything. In between, she also dropped names of famous musicians who died young, like Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse.
Well, while this kind of namedropping might be fun for her, Kurt’s daughter with Courtney Love, Frances Bean Cobain, is not amused. Not at all.
“The death of young musicians isn't something to romanticize,” she writes to Lana on Twitter. “I'll never know my father because he died young & it becomes a desirable feat because ppl like u think it's ‘cool’.”
“Well, it's [expletive]ing not. Embrace life, because u only get one life. The ppl u mentioned wasted that life.Don't be 1 of those ppl. ur too talented to waste it away,” Frances continues.
Because many of Lana’s fans perceived this as a direct attack to their idol, Frances explains that this is not why she’s saying these things because she has nothing against Lana. “I was just trying to put things in perspective from personal experience,” she explains.
Lana has been under serious fire for these death comments already, particularly after she tried to clear her name on social media by accusing The Guardian interviewer (whom she mistook for The Guardian journalist who reviewed her album) of breaching some kind of moral code by forcing her to answer the death questions.
She wrote that she was “disappointed” in the interview and promised she would never again give The Guardian the time of day. She didn’t claim she’d been misquoted or that the publication had printed lies, but she argued that the questions were leading.
In response, the journalist went public with the recording of the interview: you can find it embedded below. Clearly, the interviewer was looking to get something juicy from her but, after all, that’s his job: but there was absolutely no misunderstanding Lana’s answers.
“I wish I was dead already,” she can be heard saying. “But I do. I don't want to have to keep doing this. But I am (…) That's just how I feel. If it wasn't that way, then I wouldn't say it.”
For the record, Lana has responded to Frances’ tweets and she’s not holding a grudge. “It’s all good,” she says. Only that, you see, it’s not “all good,” industry people are saying: Lana Del Rey, as much as she’d like to be perceived as this deeply troubled and genuinely deep artist, should at least own the things that come out of her mouth.
If it’s true that she wishes she were dead already and she had the guts to say it oh so casually in an interview, she should claim responsibility for her words, stand by what she said. If she only said it to shock, she should be ashamed of herself: untimely death and / or suicide is not a topic you lightly joke about when you’re promoting your album. Or ever.