Two months after photos of Lana Del Rey, 38, at a local Waffle House went viral, the Grammy nominee opened up about why she rocked the chain’s uniform during a Sept. 20 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. It turns out that Lana had spent hours with her two siblings at the restaurant and the employees couldn’t help but notice. “We were on our third hour, and the servers asked, ‘Do you guys want shirts?’ ” the brunette beauty explained. “H*** yeah! We were thrilled.”
Lana Del Rey working at Waffle House pic.twitter.com/7V5av4OFrs
— honeymoun (@honeymounz) July 20, 2023
The 38-year-old was spotted at a Florence, Alabama Waffle House in late July and the photos of her seemingly working at the restaurant went viral online. Many of her fans speculated that she was filming a music video or possibly changing careers. Meanwhile, as the outlet reported, Lana simply has “family ties” in the area. Lana later recalled a sweet moment she had with one of the restaurant’s frequent patrons.
“This guy, a regular, comes in every day and orders two things, so they were like, ‘Just go get it for him!’ I brought him a Coke. No ice. And an empty cup,” she said. Despite being a global pop sensation, Lana admitted that she was surprised that the photos of her at the diner went viral. “I wish my album had gone as viral. I woke up to, like, 10,000 texts the next morning — some from folks I had not heard from for 10 years. ‘Saw your picture at the Waffle House!’ (Laughing.) I was like, ‘Did you hear the new album?'” she quipped.
Why is Lana Del Rey working at Waffle House now 😭 pic.twitter.com/sYsePInfjG
— honeymoun (@honeymounz) July 20, 2023
Lana recently released her album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, in March 2023. This record follows the success of her eighth studio album, Blue Banisters, from 2021. During the candid interview, Lana confirmed that her fans “get” her more now than they did in the earlier days of her career. “Yeah. Maybe they weren’t supposed to back in the day, when I thought that they would. There might’ve been a reason for that,” she said. One of her biggest hits in recent years was her collaboration with Taylor Swift, 33. The two worked together on “Snow on the Beach” for Taylor’s 2022 album, Midnights.
Although Lana faced criticism at the start of her career, she credits Taylor’s frequent collaborator, Jack Antonoff, for much of her recent success. “I give credit to Jack Antonoff. I think that his production style has such an intelligence to it that vocals have a better chance of being read correctly,” Lana explained. “There’s a little more room to process it. It was that record [Norman F****** Rockwell!] where all of a sudden things were really different.”