Why fans think Ariana Grande and Lana Del Rey are fighting (2024)

Last Thursday, singer Lana Del Rey was heavily criticised by stan Twitter after she claimed in an Instagram post that she ‘paved the way’ for Ariana Grande, Doja Cat, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj and others to sing about “being sexy, wearing no clothes, f*cking, cheating” while people condemned her for doing the same.

And now, in a follow up post explaining the original comments, the “Young and Beautiful” singer just hinted that she’s privately spoken to Ariana Grande after the post, and, allegedly, it didn’t go down well.

On the 22nd of May, the “Summertime Sadness” singer released a follow up post on Instagram, stating that “despite the feedback I’ve heard from several people that I mentioned in a complimentary way, whether it be Ariana [Grande] or Doja Cat—I want to say that I remain firm in my clarity and stance in what I was writing about was the importance of self advocacy for the more delicate and often dismissed, softer female personality, and that there does have to be room for that type in what will inevitably become a new wave/[third] wave of feminism that is rapidly approaching.”

But, as of writing, only Doja Cat has publicly responded to the controversial post—commenting the cryptic message, “gang sunk that dunker,” before deleting her comment and tweeting an even more confusing fill-in-the-black message using the ambiguous gibberish clap-back—leading many fans to suspect that Ariana Grande and the currently controversial star have spoken privately.

And, according to the next bit of info… it might not have gone down very well.When the second post was then published, fans noticed that Del Rey was no longer following Grande on Instagram. Call us Nancy Drew because we think that suggests that if they did have a private conversation about this via Insta DMs, then, well, whatever was said didn’t exactly help. Adding in the fact that Del Rey has publicly named Grande as one of the people who’ve commented on the previous post, we suspect that our fave “Rain On Me” star was not happy with it.

In the same follow up post, instead of, y’know, apologising or acknowledging the potential harm that her comments could have on the other artists, she criticised the very fans criticising her, claiming that people who see her comments as racially-charged are nothing more than “Trump [and] Pence supporters, hyper liberals or flip-flopping headline grabbing critics [who] can’t read and want to make it a race war.”

“My aim and my message are clear,” she wrote. “I have control of my own story. If the women I mention don’t wanna be associated with me that’s absolutely fine by me.”

Prior to this controversy, Ariana Grande and Lana Del Rey worked together with Miley Cyrus on the track “Don’t Call Me Angel,” a song made for Elizabeth Banks’s Charlie’s Angels reboot last year.

And, perhaps, our ponytail-loving pop queen Ariana Grande is partially unbothered by this controversy. During this period of self-isolation, our fave has gifted us with selfies featuring her super cute tattoos and natural beauty, rumours she’s in Disney’s Hercules live action, and a triforce of perfect music collabs with Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Doja Cat.

As of writing, none of the other artists mentioned in Lana Del Rey’s original post—Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Camila Cabello, Cardi B and Kehlani—have publicly responded to the controversy.