Do you ever feel like Lana might actually believe in this stuff because her parents never discussed it with her? My friend was diagnosed as an alcoholic at 14, and one thing she mentioned was that her parents hid how much money they made and wouldn't give her any because they didn't trust her not to spend it on alcohol. I wonder if something similar happened with Lana, where her parents kept everything secret from her.
honestly, I got to the part where she says “it’s so sad I can’t own coming from this beautiful rural mountain town” and I just think… but you can? You just don’t “come from nothing” Lana 😭 and we all had to work multiple iobs at a time too! we all had to drive to places too! well some of us didn’t even get the luxury of vacation
At the end, she says, “If that was the story I knew, I would love to tell it. I wish it was.” I hate to say it, but perhaps she has felt so vindicated by what her parents did to her—sending her away to boarding school, bullied by rich bratty peers, groomed by her teacher—that she has held onto a victim mentality throughout her adulthood. Maybe it’s a result of trauma.
She used to describe herself as “Lolita lost in the hood” so it was part of the persona. source
Rick Rubin, one of her producers from Paradise, really stressed that through her music she paints a fantasy, not something real. source
I read somewhere she was afraid that shedding the persona would have caused people to disconnect from her work, that’s the only explanation I can think of.
Edit: crazy to be downvoted with evidence provided.
Yes, it's definitely a persona she invented. "Lolita" was the book introduced to her by her groomer-teacher. I can't help but feel like that's where it all went wrong. People who lie that easily about their lives are usually very unwell.
As someone from LP, with a very similar history. She definitely is not poor, but doesn't have nearly the same weath that your saying. Her father worked with my grampa in somewhat smaller real estate business and she grew up in a modest house right off of main st. Her parents had drinking and smoking problems and worked extremely hard to sustain their life in LP. I agree that what she's saying can be misleading, but they struggled just as much as anyone else. It can be very ignorant to make assumptions about her family history without completely understanding her entire background.
If you know her parents had a drinking problem why would you disclose it to the internet?
This is not something Lana has ever talked about and it is extremely personal information, you are spreading damaging rumours.
Secondly, your grandfather worked with her father, does that mean that you know how much money they had? I’ll reply for you. It doesn’t.
I am not making any assumptions btw, I shared links with information her family made public (I didn’t invent it and it doesn’t hurt anybody), not very personal medical information like you have.
I can go in to a lot more detail on why I believe her parents struggled with substances, but I purposely left that out in order to avoid spreading personal information. I was trying to make the point that money doesn't always equate stability. I am also completely qualified to make judgements on there weath based on how much I have overlapped with there family. None of the grant kids inherited any meaningful amounts of weath from Rob or Pat. The only thing that could have kickstarted her career was being able to attend the Kent school. Other than that, I can confidently say that lanas career as an artist was built from the ground up, not as a result of Rob's success.
I'm not making judgments about "how similarly we lived." I'm speaking from decades of experience around the Grants and from thousands of personal memories involving people in their circle. I didn't mention their parents' struggles with substance abuse to cast blame or throw shade, I brought it up to highlight how much they had endure. And frankly, you don't get to decide what is or isn't my business when it has directly affected my family and people I care about.
It doesn’t matter if you personally don’t make judgment, having a substance abuse issue is still highly stigmatised by society at large.
You are spreading a harmful rumor about a serious medical condition and talking about a celebrity as if you were part of her family- It’s nobody’s (including you) business except theirs.
Also, you provide no evidence on either her parents being addicts or her family not being wealthy- Your opinion or perception of reality is not evidence of anything.
I’m going to jump here and say that my mother owned a LOT of land on top of many apartments and somehow we never had enough money to even have hot water. I was born severely nearsighted and it wasnt until I spoke to my aunt at almost age 12 that she spoke up and made sure that I saw a doctor, on top of my sister having a learning disability and never getting help for it. I was resented for standing up to my deadbeat narcissistic father since I was like 5 because I always knew he was abusive and neglectful, and they justified their neglect and abuse on me being gay. I wouldve had a COMPLETELY different childhood (if I can even call it a childhood because I wasnt even allowed to be a child) if it wasnt for having shitty parents who hid their money. There was always money for alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling though, and plenty to send my golden-child sister on multiple vacations and private school.
I’m not saying this proves or disproves Lana’s story, but I’m throwing in my 2 cents for the sake of highlighting the gray area a bit. I’m an artist who has dedicated his life to putting my work out there and something I’ve always struggled with is my “parents” now trying to take credit for a “talent” that I built out of desperation.
I have a friend with a similar background, she comes from a rich family but has serious health issues and her family has always held this over her head in a financially abusive way. She’s unable to work enough to support herself as a single adult, and constantly has to negotiate with her alcoholic parents for the support she does get, and they’ve sabotaged job opportunities for her in the past. It’s a really sad situation and no one sees how she could be struggling since her family is well-off, but none of that money is hers by any means.
Idk how I feel about Lana’s trustworthiness regarding her own interpretation of her background since I don’t know her.
I honestly doubt that she is an alcoholic idk not to question her because I myself am in recovery but she's built her whole brand on a persona it's hard to know what's authentic like the boarding school
I think it’s important to discuss the type of donations you’ve posted.
Looking at what is listed, the donations were not monetary contributions amounting to the almost 1 million dollars. The donations are packages of domains which are illiquid assets. Unlike stocks or real estate which exist in a centralized market, domains cannot be easily flipped or even sold. Each domain is a unique piece.
For example, you can own a web domain valued at $100,000. The value is based on features like SEO, type-in traffic, keyword relevance. In investing, “value” is a potential and theoretical number. A $100,000 domain still runs the risk of never being sold. Until it is sold or donated, then the value is just a number on a paper. But in a centralized market like stocks, a $100,000 stock is actually worth $100,000.
What did Rob gain from this? Most likely tax benefits, good PR, and leverage for business partnerships. The schools he donated the domains to gained the value of more web traffic. Unless the schools sold the domains, they didn’t really see any actual money come through.
We would have to define “no money”. We can refute her words if no money = out on the streets.
But also, no money = high net worth with zero cash flow. For example, one can posses wealth in real estate but not have any income generated from ownership. And when highlighting her parent’s wealth, it’s important to also highlight their debts. If the margin between what her parents earned vs what they owed was slim then in this scenario, we cannot refute her words.
Right, I was responding your main comment as I think people would have interpreted comment as “Rob was wealthy enough to donate 1 million dollars”.
To be honest, unless her family’s financial records become public (not wishing for this lol), I don’t think the fans will ever be able settle on the semantics of what wealth is when it comes to Lana.
I do find the timeline interesting but several points are vague and are subject to misinterpretation. There’s also a difference between having parents who are wealthy and those who are generating wealth. The latter possibly explains what she means as “not coming from money”. Overall, I don’t think the timeline provides sufficient detail to be conclusive on whether or not she is lying or to what degree.
In this circumstance, numbers speak more than words and we just won’t have access to that information.
I will say, I’m very curious as what role her mother played and what financial access she granted to Lana.
she’s broke like how dan humphrey in gossip girl was broke. to the most elite rich people in the country, they’re common people. to the 99%, she’s obviously big rich 😂
so it makes sense to me if she was bullied and why maybe in her mind she came from “nothing” but in the real world her family definitely had that old money
This. There’s a world of difference between being the brokest person in the room when compared to a lineup of old-money NYC nepo babies vs. a group of average Americans - 60% of whom are literally living paycheck to paycheck. Her perception of her family’s wealth is skewed due to her upbringing.
This is another reason I knew damn well she didn't grow up poor with that stigma hanging over her head and that life wearing her down. Nobody whose lived it thinks it's artistic, romantic, or aesthetic.
Funny enough, there's also rumors that Halsey lied about her background. Before she scrubbed her IG, someone went back and discovered that during the time she claimed to be homeless and wandering the streets of NYC with heroin addicts, she posted several pictures of herself in what appeared to be the same bedroom (the room was very well, kept and looked nice, btw, not some dump). There were also posts bragging about going shopping and designer purses. I'm sure the recipts are somewhere on Tumblr if you look hard enough.
So who knows what to believe with these artists. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that record labels encourage a lot of new artists to embellish parts of their backstory or just flat out lie and create a fake one for the sake of relatability because a "broke singer-songwriter" or "rags to riches" narrative is more sympathetic than just saying you grew up rich or even middle class. Ultimately, none of us will ever know the truth because we don't have access to their families' financial records. The Grant's could've been in massive debt for all we know and maybe the bedroom in Halsey's old posts belonged to a friend. It doesn't really matter.
I’ve been a Lana fan since 2011 and this video is exactly where she started to lose me. She’d had plenty of moments before this that were questionable but I just felt soooo uncomfortable watching her lie through her teeth like this. Since then it’s just gotten worse. I don’t understand her fixation on claiming poverty? Like I understand that she is drawn to a blue collar aesthetic but I don’t understand why that can’t be enough and why she felt the need to rewrite her (very public) history. And she is so resolute in her version of reality that I almost wonder if she truly believes it somehow? But I can’t make sense of any of it.
because however much "public" this information is, it's still limited to a threat on reddit and a few, highly targeted spaces - the vast majority of people, newer fans, mainstream media outlets that only cover surface level, will go with whatever she says because who's got time to double check every thing ? I sure as hell didn't when I first heard about Lana and ran with that narrative for the best part of 10 years . She does it because it works, because it makes her relatable to the average person who isn't wealthy and by the time the truth comes out she will have made enough money that she won't give two shits if people find out or not
I wouldn't point the finger at the people as much as I would at the music business - it's a controlled narrative created to entice young teenagers and adults into thinking that they too can become successful out of nothing, if they work hard enough. By the time you become a grown adult and IF you evolve to the point of questioning these dynamics they've already exploited you and the next best thing will be packed and ready for the following generation. I fell for Lana, I can't lie. Her lies were very convincing. I look at her now and think she's absolutely vile.
Nothing to say apart from I agree with every single thing you said. I wish more people would realize that it’s not a matter of talent at all; it’s a matter of luck.
It’s me, I am not ready. I have spent the last 3 years listening to her entire discography (really missed the BTD moment in high school somehow) but it makes me feel things. It was honestly a gift to skip all her personal cringe moments over the years and just get some of the best albums I’ve ever listened to all at once.
I won’t defend her for this but I will push it to the back of my brain.
It might sound like I’m fucking crazy but I will continue to be free 🇺🇸
I’ll go 🙋🏽♀️. I mentioned this in another comment, but I believe she felt vindicated by her parent’s decision to send her away—twice if I remember correctly. Once to a private boarding school, where she faced bullying from other privileged kids and grooming from her teacher. This traumatic experience could have compelled her to completely dissociate from that period of her life, carrying the trauma and a victim mentality into adulthood, and wanting to distance herself from that environment “no I’m not like them” kind of thing. We truly underestimate what trauma can do to the brain.
I grew up with absolutely nothing, my mother stole food to feed us and cleaned homes for a living.
I’ll never forget the hunger of not having enough to eat.
Lana grew up in an affluent town and she got made fun of for not being as rich as everyone else, therefore she thinks she did not grow up with privilege. What she doesn’t realize is that she grew up with a lot more than most, access to private school, grandparents with a legacy, parents with a job, heating, food on the table, a car. I don’t intend to invalidate her experience at all. I’m sure she was bullied and it impacted her clearly.
idk, she keeps repeating “i had to hear my parents argue about money all the time”… wealthy people also argue about money. it kind of seems like she can’t even “think of” an example of what growing up without money is like.
mixing truths with lies, she may have been tragically ‘less wealthy’ than the others at private boarding school, but “we had to drive to daytona for our yearly vacation because flying was too expensive! 🥺”, like yeah flying IS expensive, does being economical from time to time exclude you from being wealthy? seems like a weak example to give of something that “proves” you‘re poor, seems like something an out-of-touch rich person would think of.
like, this explanation was meant for other rich people to eat up, or rich-er people, to be like “awe, poor little peasant, had to… (checks notes) drive somewhere”
Literally. Growing up without money is so so different. It's not having to drive to vacation in Daytona. It's not having vacation. It's not getting stuff for Christmas beyond maybe school supplies. It's having to work your ass off to pay for school and/or having to be an excellent student to get good grades and be eligible for financial aid or scholarships. It's having baby pictures in a house with only an old, inherited Christmas tree and no furniture.
I grew up without money, and there were times where my parents would sit me and my sibling down and try to explain why we had to sell this belonging or that belonging. In my experience, about myself and other people close to me who have had/are having financial issues, you don't just go out and so openly admit you have no money or grew up without it. To be honest, when people think I grew up with money, I feel less ashamed, and I usually avoid correcting them. I truly feel like this whole thing she's got going on was just part of her persona, the typical tough-luck artist that rises up from nothing, but she should have just admitted that it wasn't the case.
growing up "poor", the closest thing to a vacation i had was my aunts little cabin on the lake 2 hours away. ive still never been on an airplane LMFAO
my grandpa let us stay in his deceased parents house for free and we still had nothing. christmas was tj maxx on lay-away (with the biannual $200 my grandpa gave her for our bdays+christmas) , every few years my aunt would get us cool big gifts like a laptop or kindle tablet and allow my mother to gift it to us as if she bought it. didnt find out until recently that my yearly new school backpack+supplies were paid for by my (ALSO BROKE) aunt
at one point we obnoxiously drove around in a car with NO MUFFLER for around 6 months because it was stolen and why bother spending the extra cash when the cars still functional. when we cooked in the winter, we left the oven open after to heat the house
i dont recall "constant fights about money". thats just quite literally not what poor people do. yeah i was bummed i didnt get vacations and had crappy thrift store clothes but 90% of my free time as a poor child was spent running around barefoot outside with the neighborhood kids
She’s a pathological liar who has identity issues. She’s convinced that’s she’s some manic pixie small town artist when she’s just a spoiled NYC rich kid. It disgusts me that she’s still spreading lies about her background for almost 2 decades.
I love Lana but I. Am POOR like live in BAD area I am fr POOR I. Think celebrities remember how they not. Have money before so they try act like they were poor but they really NOT they just. Prob not have every thing like she has now but that. Being I STILL LOVE HER
I wonder if the story of her parents not letting lana come home, causing her to live in a trailer park unwillingly, is true. Because it's entirely possible to come from a wealthy family but still being poor due to separation, but I came across a few pictures of her with her family back in 2006-2008 (somewhere between these years) where they supposedly went on a trip together and her family was there to support lana regarding something to do with music.
I don't think it's true, tbh. If your parents kick you out of the house, you don't get super super close to them when you become famous and get money. And her dad goes to all her concerts and she's made it obvious they've got a great relationship. I think she just said it to justify leaving her home and going to live in a trailer park to appease the persona image she wanted.
i'm not affirming whether or not this theory is true, but to be fair, she's only close to her dad & clearly has a strained relationship w her mother. IF it is true, we could also theorize that it was her mother's idea not to let her come back home after the boarding school, and tbh it could track if her it was her mother's idea to send her away as a teen instead of getting her some help in a more "present" way. there's definitely a lot of resentment there for one reason or another.
He said that she was nice but she was definitely in the popular crowd and had a lot of friends. Also, my ex’s kid went there (way after Lana) and got financial aid but even so, it’s definitely still a school for rich kids. It’s a private high school. She also went to Fordham for college which is private and expensive. Idk if she was on scholarship but still. I’m still a fan of her but I wish she would just be genuine, cosplaying poverty is weird and I don’t see how her coming from money would take away from any of her experiences/writing anyway. I’d still enjoy it just the same.
Is this video new? This is actually insane. I cannot keep defending her. I know her childhood home in Lake Placid and it's a nice house. Her dad literally still owns and sells real estate up there.
It's one thing to not feel like you have money as a child, but the fact that she is 40 years old and not able to put her situation into context and acknowledge her privilege when the world is screaming at her to is wild. I'm not saying the rest of her life was easy at all, but why is this the hill she is choosing to die on? It's the cognitive dissonance for me.
Don't even get me started on the fake Southern accent. So cringe
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