Granted, I haven’t paid too much attention to Lana del Rey since she ran off and married an alligator-tour boat captain, but I know that she does not look like this in real life. W Magazine really did her dirty with the Photoshop for the cover, damn. People have been mocking this cover and mocking Lana’s seeming turn into a faux-Southern faux-country artist. I’ll mock the cover, but I do think Lana’s move to an alligator-boat-captain’s wife feels pretty organic to her whole deal. If you had asked me five years ago, “which pop star is the most likely to move to Louisiana and marry an alligator guy,” I would have said Lana or Britney. Lana’s husband is Jeremy Dufrene, and they married in September 2024. It’s been a year and she seems… happy? Truly happy and like she’s successfully fulfilled her fantasy of getting away from everything and marrying some authentic, salt-of-the-earth alligator guy. Some highlights from her W Mag interview:

On her husband Jeremy Dufrene: Like many people who work with large, dangerous beasts, Dufrene has a calm, strong presence. “When we met, I realized pretty immediately that I loved him, but that it might get difficult because of what I was bringing to the table. Jeremy said, ‘I work with alligators—I have tough skin.’ And he is a man of his word. All the things that made me upset—and there were so many!—he would just listen and say, ‘You be you—and I’ll just love you more.’ ”

The interest in Lana’s wedding: “They flew in drones to watch us! If I was him, I would have been nervous—my emotions were more overwhelming than usual, and my usual emotions can be quite overwhelming! But Jeremy was fine. He said, ‘If you want, worry about yourself, but don’t worry about me!’ ”

Her astrological sign: “I was born at 4 p.m. on June 21. I was told I was a Gemini, but, apparently, if you’re born after 4 p.m., you are a Cancer, and I do qualify: Like a crab, I carry my house on my back, and I’m a crybaby—there’s water in my life everywhere. But I identify with Gemini too—I think I have three sides! A lot is going on!”

Her new album, Stove, will likely be released at the end of January. It was slated for last spring, but Del Rey decided to add six songs. “They were more autobiographical than I thought, and that took more time. The majority of the album will have a country flair. Eight years ago, when I was looking to make a country record, no one else was thinking about country. Now everyone is going country! I’ve asked myself, Should I retire all my snakeskin boots? Should I put my cowboy hats in storage?”

The song she wrote about her husband: “Stars Fell on Alabama.” I open my show with that song—that’s it, so far. Jeremy is the most impactful person in my life. He’s quiet in public, but around me he talks all the time. It’s strange: Jeremy and I have what we call “parking-lot time.” We spend so much time in parking lots, just reading or talking in the car. Sometimes, in life, you think you’re the only one in the world who loves a particular thing, like sitting in an empty Macy’s or Home Depot parking lot. You might be really weird to some people, but then you find another soul who feels the same way.”

How she feels about the gators: “I was nervous at first, but Louisiana has nicer alligators than Florida. Jeremy swims with the alligators! I swim in the bayou also, and the alligators are there, but I don’t swim alone.

Whether she’d ever write an autobiography: “Absolutely not. There have been too many personal things that I can’t talk about. Sometimes I think it’s a 50-50 split between people hating me and people respecting my work. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that, but, to be honest, thinking too much about that is a lose-lose situation. Now I try to be positive: I had a dream of a giant family and a happy life. I had to quiet the noise to find love. And I did.”

[From W Magazine]

“I had to quiet the noise to find love. And I did.” I think there are a lot of celebrities and singers who feel this way, or have this particular fantasy of walking away from their lives in New York or LA and just marrying someone in a small town and living a completely different kind of life. Lana was wistful for this kind of life for years, and now she’s got it – gators in Louisiana, swimming in the bayou, snakeskin boots and sitting in empty parking lots. These are all song lyrics, correct?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of W.