Lana Del Rey tells story behind her Waffle House shift in Alabama
“I wish my album had gone as viral,” Lana Del Rey says the of the now-famous images of her waiting tables at a Waffle House in Florence, Alabama, this summer. “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!’ I was like, ‘Did you hear the new album?’”
The “Video Games” and “West Coast” singer discusses her buzzy Alabama sightings in an extensive new interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Mikey O’Connell. The guts of the interview focus on Del Rey’s unique songwriting, prolific recording pace, influence on female popstars like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, and her journey from polarizing artist to living legend.
Since AL.com’s an Alabama-based media outlet, here are the Alabama-based takeaways from Del Rey’s Hollywood Reporter chat:
Del Rey’s Waffle House shift wasn’t premeditated. That July morning, she’d been at the Florence Waffle House with her brother and sister for three hours hanging out. From the wording of O’Connell’s lede, it sounds like Del Rey and fam had been stopping in at that Waffle House for several days, sitting at the same booth each visit.
Del Rey tells Hollywood Reporter, “”We were on our third hour, and the servers asked, ‘Do you guys want shirts?’” she says. “Hell yeah! We were thrilled.”
Staff even fixed up the singer — who’s sold more than 12 million albums and scored billions of song streams — with a Waffle House employee badge labeled “LANA.”
Del Rey says, “I didn’t see anyone take a video of me,” as she went into waitress mode. “This guy,” Del Rey tells Hollywood Reporter, “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. For dip,” referring to a spit cup, a sort of improvised mobile spittoon frequently utilized by smokeless tobacco users.
The singer’s Waffle House visit went viral after the restaurant’s manager posted a short video clip to Facebook. Selfies fans who’d recognized Del Rey had taken also hit socials.
Even before those images, there were a string of mysterious Del Rey sightings, including a Birmingham nail salon, interacting with fans in downtown Florence, and shopping at a Russellville boutique. At the end of her stay before leaving for a concert in Arkansas, she also did an impromptu recording session at legendary Sheffield recording studio Muscle Shoals Sound.
Especially after the first two sightings, there was much conjecture by fans, “stan” blogs” and music press about why Del Rey, a glamorous star based in Los Angeles, was spending so much time in Alabama, the land of barbecue and college football. Theories included a perhaps video shoot for “Paris, Texas,” a song off her latest album, in which Del Rey sings about going “to see some friends of mine, down in Florence, Alabama.”
It turned out, as AL.com previously reported, Del Rey was in town visiting family in the Florence area. The new Hollywood Reporter story reiterates this.
Del Rey is an idol to millions of fan enamored with her noir-pop songcraft, celestial vocals and legit mystique. Her kindness during her Alabama visit made her even more endearing. By all accounts she came off disarmingly down-to-earth to every normie she met here.
“Lana Del Bama” fever ramps up again this week. The singer is set to perform a sold-out concert Thursday at Huntsville’s Orion Amphitheater, which has brought legends like Stevie Nicks, Robert Plant and Jack White to town since opening last year. Del Rey’s doing a limited run of shows promoting her ninth studio album, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” released earlier this year.