Last year, Lana Del Rey launched a messy and seemingly one-sided feud against Ethel Cain, one of many artists whose music carries a clear Del Rey influence. Back in August, Del Rey posted a snippet of a still-unreleased Cain diss track. There hasn't been any further action in that beef since then, but it's still real to Lana Del Rey, who was not amused to learn that an Atlanta gay bar will host a Lana vs. Ethel drag brunch.
This coming Sunday, Team Lana Del Rey and Team Ethel Cain will face off at Lore Atlanta's drag brunch. The venue announced the event last week, and Lana Del Rey herself commented on Lore's Instagram post on Saturday, writing, "Sadly, none of this is funny. She's abusive and that's all there is to it."
Del Rey's response, which has been widely circulated Twitter and Reddit, is no longer visible on Lore's Instagram post. Commenters on Lore's post seem to believe that it's because the venue blocked Del Rey's account. Lore also posted a screenshot of Del Rey’s direct message to them that read "Fuck you.”
It's not entirely clear why Del Rel believes that Ethel Cain is "abusive." In the snippet of that song she posted last year, Del Rey sang, "Ethel Cain hated my Instagram post," and there's a lot of online speculation about past Ethel Cain internet activity that could've gotten on Del Rey's nerves. This whole thing with Lore fits into Del Rey's social media tendencies. Last month, she commented on a FADER post to say, "Don't write about me."
On St. Patrick's Day, she DM'ed Stereogum, "shut up" after being featured in a carousel of borg memes. Our boss Scott Lapatine, who made the carousel, says he prefers to think she was saying "shut up" in a shocked way.
One of the brunch's drag performers, Annie Agurl, addressed the Lana Del Rey posts on her Instagram story on Saturday night. She posted screengrabs of Del Rey's comments and then responded in a series of videos, claiming that the brunch was her idea and that Del Rel fans have been DM'ing her, telling her to "unalive" herself. Here's what she said:
So, Lana Del Racist hating my Instagram post was not on my 2026 bingo card, but here we are. I've gotten a lot of DMs. I just got off work. I'm not going to respond to everyone's. I've got a lot of DMs sitting in the request, mostly from Lana Del Rey fans telling me to unalive myself. And yeah right. You fucking wish.
I'm just going to address a few things because I'm not going to message everyone. One, John received that message from Lana. I did not. Lana just restricted my account and then removed me as a follower. Secondly, the show was my idea. It's not a format that is new to us. We've done it before. We did it with Taylor and Charli. We've done it with other pop girls who were publicly arguing with each other. So this is not new. It is the first time we've ever had someone be this upset about it, though.
The show was my idea. All of the hate that John is getting, it's not in the right direction. John really didn't even want to do this show like that. I begged for it because I love Ethel and I liked Lana... Nobody listens to Lana and they're like, "[sings] he hit me and it felt like a kiss — I gotta dance now. I gotta dance now, girl. I'm turnt." Nobody thinks that. Nobody, you know what I mean? So It was a risk anyway, but good goddamn holy fuck. Y'all are nuts. Y'all are fucking crazy. Y'all are crazy. I have people in my DMs deadnaming me. My deadname doesn't exist on the internet anymore. What is wrong with you people?
I do want to point out that her addressing Ethel Cain was very satirical — "[sings] Ethel Cain hated my Instagram post" — was very satirical, and we are also approaching it in a very satirical way. If you didn't want it approached in a satirical way, maybe you should not have released an entire fucking song about it that sparked an entire beef for the entire world to observe. You put yourself in the court of public opinion, and you're mad that we've come to a verdict. Bitch, shut the fuck up."
Also, Annie Agurl says that it's her birthday today. Happy birthday, Annie! Anyway, Stove?
