Promiscuity didn’t help Del Rey
Singer admits she tried to use sex to get ahead
Singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey says she tried to sleep her way to the top — but it didn’t get her where she wanted to go.
Del Rey — who has a song titled F---ed My Way Up to the Top on her new album — told Complex magazine that despite following a path of promiscuity to get ahead, it didn’t help.
“You know, I have slept with a lot of guys in the industry, but none of them helped me get my record deals,” she told the magazine. “Which is annoying.”
The controversial new track from her Ultraviolence album is more of wink, nudge, nudge at her racy reputation. “It’s commentary, like, ‘I know what you think of me,’ and I’m alluding to that,” Del Rey said.
The singer, 29, has a reputation as a woman who’s passionate and sometimes careless in her relationships.
That has made her a lightning rod for some feminists.
“I like a hands-on love,” she told the magazine. “How can I say this without getting into too much trouble? I like a tangible, passionate love. For me, if it isn’t physical, I’m not interested.”
Del Rey also admitted her own life inspired her to cover the Nina Simone song The Other Woman on her latest outing.
“I had a long-term relationship for seven years with someone who was the head of a label and I felt like I was that change of routine,” she said. “The people I was drawn to were already established, but they were probably looking for someone more on their level, age-wise. But I love the idea of wrapping up the record with a reference.”
As for criticism for telling The Guardian “I wish I were dead already,” Del Rey doesn’t really care.
“That’s what I expect now from my career,” she said, “that the music is going to be great and the reaction’s going to be f---ed up.”