Before there was Lana Del Rey, there was Elizabeth Woolridge Grant — an awkward, shy, blonde
and a rather plain singer with a failing career in New York.
Lizzy Grant released an LP to little fanfare in 2008, before being basically scrubbed from
the internet entirely.
What later emerged was superstar Lana Del Rey, debuting an entirely new fashion and
music style.
But there is a lot more to the dreamy pop crooner than what meets the eye.
"Sometimes I feel less nervous than other times."
From addiction struggles to romantic troubles, here's what fans might not know about Lana
Del Rey's history.
Rewriting the past
Before she began collecting mansions and enjoying her downtime at the Chateau Marmont, Del Rey
resided in a mobile home.
She told Electronic Beats:
"I did move into a trailer park when I made my first record.
I got ten grand from Five Points Records and moved into Manhattan Mobile Home in New Jersey.
And I was happy, because I was doing it for myself.
[...] I didn't want to be a part of mainstream society because I thought it was gross.
I was trying to carve my own piece of the pie in a creative way."
Considering her humble beginnings, however, there are some who believe the singer is just
an industry creation.
Label executive David Nichtern spoke out against any suggestions that Del Rey's current image
is a product of her label, insisting she created her new persona herself.
He told Spin Magazine:
"This story that it was anyone but her making the decision is complete fiction.
If she is 'made up' — well, she is the one who made herself up.
She has very strong ideas about what she does.
The idea someone could manage her into a particular shape — it's impossible."
Whether Del Rey is sincere or a sham for abandoning her outcast identity is for her fans to decide.
"To be honest, like, when you work at something for a long time and then come into a family
of people who support what you do, you're very lucky."
Battling her demons
In September 2012, Del Rey opened up to British GQ about her struggle with alcoholism as a
teen, which drove her parents to send her to a Connecticut boarding school when she
was just 14 years old.
She told the magazine:
"I was a big drinker at the time.
I would drink every day.
I would drink alone.
I thought the whole concept was so f---ing cool [...] at first it's fine and you think
you have a dark side — it's exciting — and then you realize the dark side wins every
time if you decide to indulge in it … It was the worst thing that ever happened to
me."
She eventually sobered up and began her work helping others in the New York area get clean
as well.
A secret engagement
Lana Del Rey rarely confirms anything about her personal life, but she was quite open
about and smitten with former flame Barrie-James O'Neill, whom she dated from 2011 to 2014
— and they were so serious that they were rumored to have become secretly engaged in
summer 2013.
However, it wouldn't last.
She told the press in June 2014:
"We are currently not together … He is a wonderful person.
But there are some things he has to deal with.
I will not explain it in detail.
This was hard on our relationship.
I no longer felt free.
We'll see how it goes."
Later that same year, Lana Del Rey would reveal her other major brush with love, telling Rolling
Stone that she'd maintained a hidden relationship with a record label executive who never signed
her.
She insisted it had nothing to do with furthering her music career, despite the title of her
track, "F---ed My Way to the Top."
But heartbreak would befall her then too, as she explained that their relationship was
always just within arm's reach of what she loved without reaching it, saying:
"I saw him off and on for seven years, and I'm still close with him.
He's someone who really influenced the way that I saw things, just in terms of not being
able to have what I wanted.
And just being close to a life that I really envisioned and loved."
With that kind of bad luck in love it's no wonder her songs tend to be so blue.
A mysterious illness
Del Rey revealed in June 2014 that she'd been battling a medical condition that had yet
to be diagnosed for her at the time, and it severely affected her ability and desire to
perform live for a long time.
It manifested itself in a tearful performance in Ireland in May 2013.
She explained to The Fader:
"I'd been sick on tour for about two years with this medical anomaly that doctors couldn't
figure out.
That's a big part of my life: I just feel really sick a lot of the time and can't figure
out why [...] It's just heavy performing for people who really care about you, and you
don't really care that much about yourself sometimes.
I thought it was sad."
Del Rey's openness about the issue has since inspired others to come to terms with their
own secret suffering.
Personal passion
Lana Del Rey's album, Ultraviolence, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Chart in 2014,
but she claimed she didn't want anyone to listen to it.
The singer told Rolling Stone in 2014:
"I'm very selfish.
I make everything for me, kind of.
I mean, every little thing, down to the guitar and the drums.
It's just for me.
I want to hear it, I want to drive to it, I want to swim in the ocean to it.
I want to think about it, and then I want to write something new after it.
You know?
It's just … I don't want them to hear it and think about it.
It's none of their business!"
She must not have been too terribly upset about the public listening to her music, since
she went on to release two more albums -- Honeymoon and Lust for Life -- afterwards.
But Lana Del Rey wouldn't be Lana Del Rey if she weren't lamenting something.
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