Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey Bio

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, known professionally as Lana Del Rey, is an American singer-songwriter whose melancholic, cinematic pop sound has reshaped the alternative pop landscape. Born on June 21, 1985, in New York City, she rose to international prominence after the viral success of her 2011 single “Video Games” and went on to achieve major commercial success with studio albums such as Born to Die (2012), Ultraviolence (2014), and Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019). Her work blends alternative pop, baroque pop, and dream pop, and is widely recognized for its references to 1950s through 1970s Americana. Throughout her career, Del Rey has earned multiple accolades, including an MTV Video Music Award, three MTV Europe Music Awards, two Brit Awards, two Billboard Women in Music awards, and a Satellite Award, alongside nominations for eleven Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.

Early Life and Background

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant was born on June 21, 1985, in Manhattan, New York City, to Robert England Grant Jr., a copywriter at Grey Group, and Patricia Ann “Pat” Grant, an account executive at the same organization. She has a younger sister, Caroline “Chuck” Grant, and a younger brother, Charlie Grant. Raised Catholic and of Scottish and English descent, she was introduced to music early, singing in her church choir at St. Agnes School in Lake Placid, New York, where her family relocated when she was a year old. She later attended Kent School, an Episcopal boarding school in Connecticut, before briefly studying at the State University of New York at Geneseo and ultimately enrolling at Fordham University in the Bronx, where she majored in philosophy with an emphasis on metaphysics and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2008.

Path to Music

Del Rey began performing in New York City nightclubs under names such as “Sparkle Jump Rope Queen” and “Lizzy Grant and the Phenomena” while she was still an undergraduate at Fordham. Her first public performance came in 2006 at the Williamsburg Live Songwriting Competition, where she met A&R representative Van Wilson of 5 Points Records. In 2007, she submitted a demo tape, No Kung Fu, to the label and signed a recording contract. After graduating from Fordham, she released the EP Kill Kill as Lizzy Grant in 2008 and later adopted the stage name Lana Del Rey, a phrase inspired by the glamour of the seaside and the Brazilian Ford Del Rey sedan, with a nod to actress Lana Turner. Her self-titled debut album followed in January 2010 under the alternate spelling Lana Del Ray, setting the stage for the breakout she would achieve the following year.

Lana Del Rey Career

Early Career (2005-2010)

Del Rey registered a seven-track extended play with the United States Copyright Office in 2005 under the titles Rock Me Stable and Young Like Me, followed by a second EP, From the End, recorded under the stage name May Jailer. Between 2005 and 2006, she recorded an acoustic album, Sirens, under the May Jailer project, which later leaked online. In 2010, she released her self-titled debut album Lana Del Ray through 5 Points Records, with production from David Kahne. The album was made available on iTunes for a brief period before being withdrawn in April 2010, and Del Rey subsequently bought back the rights to the project.

That same year, Del Rey met her future managers, Ben Mawson and Ed Millett, who helped her exit her contract with 5 Points Records. She relocated to London and, on September 1, 2010, was featured by Mando Diao during its MTV Unplugged concert in Berlin. She also acted in the short film Poolside during this formative period, continuing to refine the cinematic, retro-inflected visual style that would later define her career.

Breakthrough (2011-2013)

In 2011, Del Rey uploaded self-made music videos for “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans” to YouTube, where the “Video Games” clip became a viral sensation. The song’s success led to a recording contract with Polydor and Interscope Records and earned her a Q Award for “Next Big Thing” in October 2011 and an Ivor Novello for “Best Contemporary Song” in 2012. Her second studio album, Born to Die, was released worldwide on January 31, 2012, and went on to sell 3.4 million copies that year, becoming the fifth-best-selling album of 2012. The album debuted at number one in eleven countries and held a long-running presence on the US Billboard 200, ultimately spending more than 520 weeks on the chart.

The success of Born to Die was bolstered by the sleeper hit “Summertime Sadness,” whose Cedric Gervais remix won the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical in 2013, and by the original song “Young and Beautiful,” recorded for the 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, which was nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media. In November 2012, Del Rey released the EP Paradise, which debuted at number ten on the Billboard 200 and was later nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. She also won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Alternative in 2012 and the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist in 2013.

Notable Works and Milestones

Born to Die (2012) marked a turning point in modern pop, with Billboard crediting the album as a primary catalyst for the mid-2010s shift from brash EDM to a moodier, hip-hop-inflected sound. Ultraviolence (2014) debuted at number one in twelve countries, while Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019) was nominated for Album of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards and was later named one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone.

Lana Del Rey Award Nominations

Lana Del Rey has been nominated for eleven Grammy Awards and one Golden Globe Award, with consistent recognition across both the Alternative and Pop fields. Her Grammy nominations include Album of the Year for Norman Fucking Rockwell! and Did You Know That There\’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, Song of the Year for “A&W” and the title track from Norman Fucking Rockwell!, and Best Pop Vocal Album for Paradise and Lust for Life. The Golden Globe nomination came for the title theme of the 2014 biographical film Big Eyes.

Lana Del Rey Awards Won

Throughout her career, Lana Del Rey has been honored with an MTV Video Music Award, three MTV Europe Music Awards, two Brit Awards, two Billboard Women in Music awards, and a Satellite Award. She was also presented with the Trailblazer Award at the Billboard Women in Music ceremony in 2015 and was later named “Greatest American Songwriter of the 21st century” by Rolling Stone UK in 2023.

Lana Del Rey Family

Del Rey was born to Robert England Grant Jr. and Patricia Ann “Pat” Grant, both of whom worked at the Grey Group advertising agency. Her father later worked for a furniture company and became a domain investor, while her mother worked as a schoolteacher. She has a younger sister, Caroline “Chuck” Grant, who has directed several of her music videos, and a younger brother, Charlie Grant. The family relocated from Manhattan to Lake Placid, New York, when she was a year old, and she has cited her uncle, who taught her to play guitar during a difficult period in her late teens, as a key musical influence in her early years.

Personal Life

On September 26, 2024, Del Rey married Jeremy Dufrene, a tour boat captain from Louisiana. The couple first met in 2019 when Del Rey took a tour with him in Des Allemands, Louisiana. Their wedding was officiated by Judah Smith, the megachurch pastor of Churchome, who was also featured on her 2023 album Did You Know That There\’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Del Rey has previously been linked to photographer Francesco Carrozzini, Scottish singer Barrie-James O\’Neill, reality television personality Sean Larkin, and musician Clayton Johnson.