Lana Del Rey has spoken out about her friendship with Camila Cabello, and quashed rumours about why she brought the singer out during her Coachella set.
Speculation about the relationship between the two came into the spotlight once again following Del Rey’s recent headline set at the 2024 edition of Coachella. During her performance during the second weekend of the California festival last month, the ‘Candy Necklace’ singer surprised fans by bringing out Cabello as a surprise guest.
The moment saw them come together to perform a rendition of the latter’s recent single ‘I LUV IT’, and caught some fans off guard as it was widely thought that it would be Taylor Swift who would be joining Del Rey as a guest on the night.
Some viewers also questioned why the headliner chose to bring out Cabello, particularly because the track they duetted is unlike anything in Lana Del Rey’s discography and not the obvious choice when it comes to a collaboration.
For some devoted fans, a consensus emerged that the appearance at Coachella may have been somewhat of a peace offering, following the ‘Video Games’ singer seemingly calling out the pop star in a past post.
The alleged tension between the two arose back in 2020, when Lana Del Rey shared a now-infamous post on Instagram titled ‘Question for the culture’. In the update, the singer complained about how so many artists had reached the Number One spot on the charts “with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, etc”, however, she had faced backlash for “glamorising abuse” and been “crucified” because of it.
In the post, Cabello was one of the artists Del Rey mentioned in relation to topping the charts.
Happy 3 years to Lana’s “controversial” question for the culture. She high-key spilled, but y’all aren’t ready for that conversation. pic.twitter.com/85bNqpzUMF
— Venezia Bitch (@venezia_bitch) May 21, 2023
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As highlighted by Stereogum, the ‘Summertime Sadness’ singer had already had to clarify that she did not intend to criticise the singer-songwriter when she left the cryptic comment “What the hell?’ under one of the latter’s Instagram posts. “I meant what the hell in a good way,” she said at the time. “As in it’s so good.”
Anyway, following the recent collaboration at the Indio festival, the convoluted history between the two has been drawn into the spotlight once again, with a fan posting that 2020 rant again online, highlighting Cabello’s name and writing a caption “definition of forgive and forget!”.
That being said, Del Rey seems to have put the rumours to rest once and for all – replying to the fan’s post and clarifying that she didn’t intend to name-check the singer in the first place.
“Um it’s not a forgive and forget vibe because, other than one person I didn’t know, most of these people were my friends that’s why I felt safe listing them,” she wrote.
“They knew I was saying I wanted to be able to tell my story which was worse than most peoples, like they could,” she added, before going on to claim that she “was sequestered to wearing turtlenecks for 11 years” after releasing her hit song ‘Video Games’.
Lana del rey defending Camila again 🥹
A fan on IG was suggesting that Camila’s performance at Coachella was a redemption for “question for the culture” pic.twitter.com/0eZ7LicTBs— ᎩᏆᏚᏬᏚ CABELLO🔝🌴 (@Yisus_00070) May 1, 2024
“But because everyone critically hated ‘video games’ just ‘cause I was talking about watching my boyfriend playing video games I was sequestered to wearing turtlenecks for 11 years. vibe what you will,” she wrote. “By the way, these were also the only people who had number one hits in the last six months that year that was the whole point, to name anyone else would’ve been irrelevant.”
Following the backlash from Del Rey, the fan who posted the 2020 post immediately shared an apology, and explained why they pulled the rant back into the limelight. “I only meant good things and was simply happy that camila and lana were still friends,” they wrote.
In other news around the singer’s Coachella set, it was reported last month that the festival was facing a fine of around $28,000 (£22,585), due to the singer running over the scheduled time frame.
The time issues with the set last month coincided with a similar problem the ‘Blue Jeans’ singer faced last June, when she arrived on stage late for her performance at Glastonbury, and was subsequently cut off due to hitting the curfew.