Lana del Rey named GQ UK’s woman of the year: good pick or wtf?

Lana del Ray

Lana del Rey and her entirely manufactured self (including those lips) appears on the cover of GQ UK’s October issue. Lana was named the “Woman of the Year” at last week’s “Men of the Year” event, so she’s naked in the photoshoot, which makes sense I guess. Sure’s, she’s got a nice body, but it still remains a mystery why Lana gets so much attention when it’s clear that she’s merely the latest pop flavor of months that have already past. Here are some excerpts from Lana’s speech at the GQ event, where she discussed boob groping for a good cause and her troubles with alcohol:

Lana del Ray

She landed the title of GQ’s Woman of the Year at an awards ceremony last week so who could blame Lana Del Rey for oozing confidence. And it is clear that the 26-year-old singer is comfortable in her own skin stripping off to appear nude on the cover of next month’s magazine.

The Video Games singer is seen sat on the floor completely naked with her legs crossed and only her long fiery locks to conceal her modesty. Wearing nothing but bright red lipstick Lana is seen tilting her head in a seductive fashion towards the camera.

In another shot she is seen dressed in a white basque smelling a rose while in another a man is cupping her breast. At the GQ party last week Lana revealed exactly who the hand belonged to. Introduced by Boy George, who kindly compared her sultry persona to that of Marilyn Monroe, she took the stage and thanked editors for bestowing her with the title.

Shifting on stage, she hummed, her words hanging with monotone expression: “We had a beautiful shoot in Monaco and I had a really interesting interview – for a change – and I was reminded of why I love to sing and why I wanted to become a writer. And also,” she continued, “Paul, the creative director, was very hands on with the shoot.”

As laughter rumbled through the audience, Del Rey made reference presumably to the British magazine’s creative director, Paul Solomons. “In fact, if you see in the magazine – in the middle of the spread – you’ll see a hand hoisting up one of my boobs,” she added. “That’s Paul’s hand. Couldn’t have done it without him.”

Speaking to the magazine Lana speaks out about what it is like living in the spotlight and says: “My life is just f&@&ing different. I never wanted to lead a normal life. I was always a secret thrill-seeker.”

The flame-haired singer also talked about her battle with drinking. She said: “Alcohol was the first love of my life. I have a dark side but the dark side was winning every time.”

Lana has recently revealed she is quitting the recording studio to write Hollywood scripts and she even enjoyed dinner with British actress Carey Mulligan, 27, in LA last month.

[From Daily Mail]

Wait, they totally buried the lead there. Lana is quitting music to become a screenwriter! This is huge news if only because it means that we won’t have to listen to her “music” anymore. Otherwise, I don’t care too much about what she says. Everything about this girl sounds fake, and even her statements on alcohol (she claims to have been a hard drinker at age 14) sound like she’s embellishing them to sound edgy. Is that insensitive of me to say? I do fully sympathize with those who have a problem with alcohol and have lived through the hell of getting back onboard with life, but I just don’t buy much when it comes to Lana del Rey.

Lana del Ray

Here are a few photos of Lana wearing a white Wayne Cooper dress at last week’s GQ Awards event. Kaiser’s correct — it does look like a wedding dress.

Lana del Ray

Lana del Ray

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and GQ UK

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

105 Responses to “Lana del Rey named GQ UK’s woman of the year: good pick or wtf?”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Kat says:

    Her lips look much smaller now…

  2. Camille says:

    WTF definitely. She has genius pr people. Her album flopped, she made fool of herself on snl but somehow she is getting all this covers and attention.

    • emma says:

      Her album has sold 2 million copies. Not exactly flopped.

    • gg says:

      I saw her on SNL. My husband and I were both: WTF is this crap??? She can’t even sing, and looks way too young to have cheek implants.

      Llama del Meh.

    • bns says:

      I tried to give her music a chance, but I just can’t. I don’t get it either.

    • Me Too says:

      Her father is RICH. He’s bought her fame. She’s just another example of how low we’ve come as far as entertainment today. she’s talentless. She’s famous for being famous just like Paris Hilton and the Kardashians.

    • gigi says:

      Lana del Rey/Lizzy Grant has genius PR people because her daddy is a very rich man who bought her a career. That’s how she ended up on all those magazine covers before people even knew who the hell she was, much less had the chance to listen to her music. GQ Woman of the Year? What a sham.

    • deehunny says:

      The reason why she gets so much attention is because she is startling beautiful, fake or not.

  3. Belly says:

    Check the zombie behind her in the last pic… Not much of a meal there matey.

  4. jamie says:

    The time I heard or saw Lana del Rey was the morning after the SNL debacle. As a result, I just can’t understand how/why she is famous or how people can be a fan of hers. It makes absolutely no sense to me and I find her incredibly irritating. To me she she seems to be on par talent and style wise with the Kardashians yet somehow she garners respect, especially in the UK. Anyone care to explain?

    • Lily says:

      For most of the people who don’t like her, all you’ve heard/seen of her is about the SNL performance, maybe you also heard Video Games or another song from her last album and that’s it. The thing is she’s been making music for years (nothing close to sugary pop), she writes all of her songs, she made the 60’s classy look trend again in the fashion sphere, she won an Ivory Award (which is like an Oscar for music writers and composers), she’s writing for other artists and movie scores, she’s one of the best selling artist of 2012 so far and the list goes on. She’s actually pretty discreet. She doesn’t do anything controversial. People pick on her because she’s awkward on stage. Some other people think she’s too “perfect” to be authentic… But she has a strong fanbase. It’s okay that people don’t get her, I just don’t understand why some people have to put her down while they know nothing about her and her craft.

      • Mimi says:

        Lily I’m familiar with her history and her “craft” and I still think her & her music suck bananas. Fake plastic bananas.

      • keats says:

        None of this explains the gq cover better than ‘BOOBS LOL’

      • NM6804 says:

        So she’s a songwriter then? Because her stage perfomances are cringe-inducing.

        She has no presence, she’s scared and doesn’t connect with her audience. She looks too focues on singing correctly that she is forgetting to sing with genuine emotion. Compared to Adele, Tori Amos or Fiona Apple for instance, their emotions hit you right to the core whereas LDR never gets in to her own songs or hits a serious bad note (which happens all too often for somebody who doesn’t move one bit and sings slow songs!) and you’re aware of her performance too much.

        For somebody who has been into music for such a long time, it seems like she didn’t train at all to ‘act’ on stage which sorry, is a big part of a singer.

        If you look at her past, it seems like she is telling the truth a bit. But matter of fact is, she still is a rich girl turned into manufactured artist. She did not have that look or lips when she first started out and she was happy to lie about her past to her fans. Gaga knows about that tactic too.

        She’s one of those artists who claim to be different but their past reveals that they not only changed their looks but also their music to get that fame. Fiona Apple worked her butt off to present the music SHE liked. Not moneygrubbing music execs. And now we have the ‘different’ LDR posing cliché half-naked and ‘wild past’ quoting in a men’s magazine!

        I could go on but suddenly I realised I don’t even like LDR and I’m bored :).

      • TheOriginalKitten says:

        Agree with all comments above. This girl irritates the hell out of me.

      • Trillion says:

        She made the 60’s look a fashion trend?? Ever heard of, I dunno, Amy Winehouse?

      • HulaHoop says:

        Huh. I always thought that Mad Men made the 60’s look fashionable again. Silly me.

      • janie says:

        I really like her music, but her personality is so off-putting. Her argument that she “lived in a trailer park” (for the experience, while being supported by her rich father) so she couldn’t possibly have been able to afford plastic surgery is bullshit. She’s clearly had multiple procedures, and there are before/after pics to prove it. And her stage presence sucks.

      • Nadine says:

        Lily: clap, clap, clap!!! Finally, someone said something reasonable! I agree with everything you’ve just said.

        She has a beautiful voice, she writes beautiful lyrics…It’s quite sad to know that she’s thinking about giving up the singing career.

      • mln89 says:

        @trillion-thank you! saying tha lana del ray brought sixties fashion back is the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard. I think Amy Winehouse was definitely one of many who popularized 60’s style in fashion AND in music. Along with shows like Madmen. But Lana Del Ray. WTF?

        @lily-get a grip. i’ve heard her sing and she’s awful. and making 60’s fashion popular again? UM..NO.

    • gg says:

      She lacks the gift of being a good entertainer and moans off-key.

  5. marie says:

    I’m leaning towards WTF..I have no clue why she’s famous..

    • KellyinSeattle says:

      Me, too…I love Boy George, but he introduced her as a “Marilyn Monroe”? She wishes…

      • Isa says:

        When I saw the headline about that, it didn’t mention Monroe, and I thought he referenced the other Marilyn that he is more closely associated with lol. I actually thought he dissed someone again before I read it.

    • GirlyGirl says:

      The Star-making machinery really wants her to be the next “it” girl I suppose.

      I just don’t see any talent. Her music is really boring, can’t imagine her scripts will be any better.

  6. CFC says:

    Well that was random.

  7. really says:

    GQ offends womankind, once again. The woman who impressed them the most this year is a middling talent who humiliated herself on national television? Hey, I didn’t expect Dr. Jane Goodall, but this woman is spectacularly uninspiring.

    • UNF Joan Jett! says:

      GQ doesn´t care as long as the bitch gets naked while ALL the men of the year are dressed in power suits. Because what else should women be celebrated for when not for their bodies, right? It´s not like they are human beeings like men and therefore need to be treated with the same respect… *eyeroll*

      Sometimes I hate people in media.

  8. mia girl says:

    WTF x 1000

  9. Cel says:

    Its a WTF from me, although not because she won (her pr team deserve a round of applause) but because she is the only winner photographed naked – where are the nude shots of Damian Lewis, Mike Fassbender, Chris Hemsworth or some of those olympians?? Not Acceptable!

    • UNF Joan Jett! says:

      Yes, THIS!

      • Really? says:

        Mmm hmmm, when you’re in your 20’s and get photographed nude, you really feel like it’s “art,” but when you get older,you realize that that promomters and photographers are just effing perverts out to get a little schwing.

        Yes, i speak from experience. I don’t blame her for the nude stuff. And, i can’t blame her either for riding the incoming tide of fame and glory. Having said that, I would never buy or even listen to her music, unless it was by chance, hopefully with a glass of wine in a hotel bar or something.

        She does not bother me more than Lady GG or Miley with that ridiculous hair now, or Keisha, or, ick, Katy Perry. She seems way cooler. So she gets a pass.

      • UNF Joan Jett! says:

        I don´t blame her either. But I blame GQ for sending out the shitty message that a female´s worth is only her body.

      • TheOriginalKitten says:

        Please don’t give her a free pass. Please. She’s the girl that said this:

        “I would have loved to be part of the indie community. But I wasn’t. I was looking for a community, I don’t even know any people who are musicians. I never met that indie popular indie, whoever the fuck that is. Who IS indie? First of all, I can’t really get my head around what indie music is. Because if you’ve heard of it, it’s sort of pop music, right? Because it’s, like, popular? Or is it just that it’s not on the radio? It’s not like I was in an indie community and then I blew up. It’s like, I was living on the street and I’m not – like, for real, you know what I’m saying?”

        She’s not smart and she isn’t “cool”, and she sure as HELL isn’t articulate.

  10. Feebee says:

    Reminds you once again that these awards mean nothing. Which is a shame because they also recognised Fassbender among others with talent and a good body of work which is well known to the public. Not to mention he would also have looked great in a similar photo shoot – except for the one at the window. That’s all sorts of ick.

  11. Shitler says:

    Is she touching herself?

  12. stinky says:

    not sexy. whoever she is.

  13. hannah says:

    It’s Lana del REy. If you’re gonna slag her off, at least get her name right!

    • TheOriginalKitten says:

      Actually you’re both wrong-her name is Lizzy Grant.

      • Mimi says:

        Ha!! BOO-YA!

      • EscapedConvent says:

        Lana del Rey–what a silly name that is! If you’re going to make up an exotic name–just call yourself Dolores del Rio. Or Lupe Velez.

        And silly names are not all bad, by the way. My boyfriend, Benedict Cumberbatch, has the silliest name out there, but it *is* his name. Yes, I had to drag Cumby up in here even when the topic at hand has nothing to do with him.

      • gg says:

        haha @ kitten, EscapedConvent. I thought the same thing. She does not look exotic enough to have that particular fake name.

      • TheOriginalKitten says:

        @GG (hi!)-Exactly. I think she thought that if she changed her look with lip-plumping and gave herself a Spanish name that she might seem more interesting. Um, FAIL.

  14. CC says:

    definitely WTF.

    • Devyn says:

      Wow half of her nose is gone. She does look nice (though in a very fake way), but I much prefer her natural lips. Seriously don’t get the obsession with plumping.

    • someone says:

      i can’t understand how all of these pictures exist yet she still denies any plastic surgery and even PEOPLE who see these deny her getting any…especially the lips.

    • Sofie says:

      The nose job actually bothers me even more than the lips at this point. All I can think when I see her is: That’s a really fake nose. Even if you hadn’t seen a before picture, you would be able to tell she had it altered.

  15. Miffy says:

    She sure is enjoying those curtains in the second photo.

  16. Nola says:

    The photo shoot sucks. Every photo is the definition of try hard.

    That being said I really like Lana and her music. She’s a combination of glamour, tackiness and youthfulness (ie tumblr pics). Plus she has some great lyrics “you fit me better than my favorite sweater” and “the voice of nirvana, says come as you are” profound, yet so naive at the same time. I love it. Her lyrics carry a lot more weight than most of our current pop acts these days.

    I don’t get why people were up in arms about her transformation. Um most of hollywoods celebrated entertainers under went the same transformations and it fits Lana brand/image.

  17. Meow Mix says:

    Bought and paid for by daddy.

  18. Darlene says:

    I love her. I love her music. Her album is epic. It’s refreshing to see someone so in the public eye who eschews drugs and alcohol. And as for 14 being too young, please direct your attention to Drew Barrymore. Quoting her wikipedia page: “smoking cigarettes at age nine, drinking alcohol by the time she was 11, smoking marijuana at 12, and snorting cocaine at 13. Her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was in rehab at age 13. A suicide attempt at age 14 put her back in rehab, followed by a three-month stay with singer David Crosby and his wife. ”

    In my own real life, I was a camp counselor, and one of my campers was in rehab for alcoholism at 14. She’s been sober since she was 19 or so, which makes her sober 20 years now.

    It happens, sadly, but it does happen.

  19. Isa says:

    Call me shallow, but what I really want to know is if her face was already that asymetrical before surgery or did surgery do that. It’s not so obvious in these photos, but in other candid shots it is quite obvious.

  20. Jayna says:

    Love her. I love her album. And the song Blue Jeans is always in my head. She’s gorgeous, but sometimes the upper lip is odd because she overinflates it. She’s not the best live singer and has terrible stagefright, but I love her voice on the album.

  21. Jayna says:

    She had to go to dark hair, because Gaga stole her long reddish-brown hair and blown-up lips. Gaga, you original you. J/K. Just razzing Little Monsters who say everybody copies Gaga.

  22. Whatever says:

    No talent but great pr team.

  23. SmokeyBlues says:

    Have any of you listened to her album? It’s amazing. My husband and I listen to it at home all the time, she has a true talent and uniqueness. We saw her on SNL, laughed a bit, perked up our ears and both concluded that while the performance was indeed awful there was “something” there. She is not a stage perfomer bit she is wonderful in the studio and we were thrilled with her album. So sexy. It makes me sad that so many people don’t like her. I know her look is manufactured but so are most so singers’ looks. I find her inspiring.

    • emma says:

      I agree. She gets to take a lot of crap that she doesn’t deserve. I think she’s great and that she’s very talented, but she’s not a performer. She has said herself that she’s a studio singer and that she’s very uncomfortable live. Too bad people have decided that she’s fake because she got plastic surgery.

      • gg says:

        I think people think she’s fake because her PR has been all blown out of proportion to her worth as an artist. If she sounds like crap on a live stage, she needs to stay off live stages, because when I’ve seen her twice on tv, both times she was so dismal I couldn’t change the channel fast enough. Now, if they even mention her name we race to the remote to get that thing off. She’s even harder to listen to than Florence and the Machine.

    • Isa says:

      I like her much better as a song-writer than a singer. I like her songs, but not her voice. It’s thin and kinda grating to me, but to each his own.

    • Jayna says:

      This. I love the album. I would never pay to see her live, but a great album is forever. Her studio voice is stronger than live and very unique.

      Blue Jeans is one of my favs of hers for summer – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-6cCmxaGoQ

    • Kat says:

      I love her album. It’s really good. I think a lot of people who hate on her haven’t listened to it. I get hating on her for her lips, her stupid quotes, and her stage presence, but I don’t understand why people say her music is bad. Even if it’s not your particular cup of tea, it’s not bad.

      • Talia says:

        I’m going to have to disagree with you on that. She has one or two songs that are slightly catchy, but get old and annoying very quickly, but most of her songs range meh to bad.

  24. claire says:

    They’re trying to make this girl a “thing” so badly, and no one’s buying it. She’s going to burn through Daddy’s money pretty quickly, trying to get this career off the ground. Totally fake. Totally not talented.

    • emma says:

      As I commented above, she’s sold 2 million albums, plus she has a deal with Jaguar and H&M. She doesn’t need her dad’s money. She has a fake face but I doubt her persona is fake, and she’s definetely not untalanted.

  25. k says:

    WTF.

    WTF is the deal with not warning your readers about nudity – partial or otherwise- after the jump?

  26. ellie66 says:

    She looks like someone is holding a small turd under her nose.

  27. TheOneAndOnlyOnly says:

    First, anyone that says she has talent have you not listened to babs, selena, blondie, pat benatar, diana ross, janis joplin tina turner, etc – they have/had talent – lizzy grant is completely manufactured and sings like a rubber chicken is stuffed down her throat. As for not being good live – WTF – anyone can sound good with today’s studio engineering. Look at it this way, she’s the same age as all the legends that took the stage at WOodstock two gen ago, they had primitive equipment played stoned before several hundred thousand and pulled it off; this fake plastic comatose moron can’t sing live for three minutes on SNL. The more we apologize for crap like this the more the machine will give us.Why would anyone listen to this useless weak noise – hell, my cats throwing up hairballs have more talent. Moans off key excellent gg.

    • EscapedConvent says:

      I agree with everything here—those ladies are all real singers. But how is she the same age as the Woodstock crowd? Woodstock was seventeen years before Miz Lizzy was born.

      • TheOneAndOnlyOnly says:

        I meant that the legendary musicians/artists at WOodstock were all mostly in their early mid twenties in other words the same age as lizzy grant (I refuse to call her by her pr created moniker) is now – but light years ahead as far as live musical talent. And i repeat bands in the 60s/70s played stoned and overall still played better than the amateurish bands of today.

      • Sofie says:

        I’m assuming TheOneandOnlyOnly meant she is the same age as the Woodstock crowd when they preformed (as in she is currently 26 and they were 26 back in 1969). At least that’s they way I read it.

        edit: Oops, sorry. I didn’t see the response.

  28. Luffy says:

    I actually like Lana’s music. A lot of her songs are sad so they’re good for breakups.

  29. Cam S says:

    I’d like to see what she looked like BEFORE her nose job and lip enhancement

  30. Jayna says:

    I love this song. The album version isn’t on youtube but the demo version is on it.

    Dark Paradise

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaPt2lSt554

  31. Sofie says:

    “Wearing nothing but bright red lipstick Lana is seen tilting her head in a seductive fashion towards the camera.”

    She looks like she’s about to sneeze to me.

  32. Amy says:

    I like Lana’s voice but she is all over the place in her live performances. I heard about her before the SNL thing–she promoted her music in Europe before her big North America debut and she sounded amazing.

    This is a video of her singing Blue Jeans live on French tv a few months BEFORE SNL. Compare the two Blue Jeans performances. Hands down she sang better in the French one.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS3Szig13Lk

    And this is her singing Video Games in Holland a few months before SNL as well:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOP2Yd_jpYQ

    I think she can sing. But she tends to get nervous and kind of go all over the place depending on the audience.

    • TheOriginalKitten says:

      But it’s not enough to just be able to put on a solid live performance “sometimes”. I mean, yeah it’s enough to become a successful popstar in today’s culture of auto-tuning and lip-synching but it’s just not enough to garner my respect or for me to consider her talented. There are hundreds of great singers out there who consistently perform great live but then again, maybe they don’t have the overinflated lips and the “look” that this chick has.

      I just get exhausted by the manufactured pop acts out there. Why are we rewarding people who are of mediocre talent when there are artists out there who are the real deal?
      It just depresses me..

      • Bodhi says:

        Jesus Tits, this, ALL of this.

        Her entire “career” has been bought & paid for. “lana del rey” is a commodity, nothing more, nothing less. I wonder what her symbol on the Wall Street ticker should be

  33. Camille (TheOriginal) says:

    She’s a terrible model. Nothing behind the eyes and she can’t pose to save herself. And I don’t believe any of the BS that comes out of her mouth. She’s a poseur.

  34. celine says:

    sry to tell u, i love lana, i don’t give a fcku that she’s manufactured. she’s great, her music is art.

  35. Ally8 says:

    Those are some terrible, unflattering pictures. I wonder if her manager-dad hung around while they were being taken.

    In the street photos, looks like the collagen is dissipating.

  36. lulu says:

    Not wtf but Try Hard, I’m still wondering why she ruined her lips like that with plastic surgery looks worse than Linsday Lohan’s …

  37. Bodhi says:

    I think its hilarious that: 1) she is some how considered a “singer; & 2) whatever it is she does is considered work.

    There is nothing legit about her. Everything about her is 100% entirely manufactured, including her face. (Her body is rocking though, I admit I’m jealous of it)

    Her lyrics are trite at best, her “look” is derivative, & her persona & “story” are not only the very definition of off-putting, but are total bullshit. She is more manufactured that Taylor Swift, which is something I never thought I’d say. Her album may have sold 2 million units, but it was soundly panned by the music industry.

    And now she is giving it all up to be a screenwriter, oh how I look forward to those contributions to the art form.

    This “artist” is one of the reasons I seriously fear the shit that my toddler will be all about when he is 12… unless, of course, I can instill in him Cash, Elvis, the Stones & Beatles, Dylan, and, above all, The Band

  38. mln89 says:

    i like her hair and makeup, but her lips look like a science experiment gone wrong.

  39. Lizi says:

    I always thought that to be a good singer you had to sing at least well on stage. silly me. That being said, most pop songs exploit shallowness covered up as “deep feelings”. Even Abba songs have more feeling that most of the modern pop crap.Pop culture sucks. Even a big psycho poser like courtney love is better than that.

  40. tasha says:

    I’m wondering what sort of tricks they used to get her so high in the charts. Prince gave a CD away (packaged with a popular UK magazine ) and was #1 in the UK overnight. Madonna bundled a CD with her concert tickets and rose in the charts. Record companies used to just buy albums back from the shops. I’m guessing there are all sorts of way to manipulate digital sales.