Lana Del Rey Doesn’t Believe Donald Trump Purposely Incited Capitol Riot

Lana Del Rey decided to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt in a time when opinions of the outgoing U.S. president couldn't be lower.

lana
Getty

Image via Getty/David Crotty/Patrick McMullan

lana

Lana Del Rey believes that one good controversy deserves another. The singer-songwriter is still catching heat for her preemptive defense of her upcoming album's cover art. Not content with just being called tone-deaf over her defense that she can't be racist because she's dated rappers, LDR decided to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt in a time when opinions of the outgoing president couldn't be lower.

In an interview with BBC Radio 1 to promote Chemtrails Over The Country Club's eponymous lead single, Lana said that she felt the country needed Trump to happen and that he was not aware his words would incite a riot.

Del Rey believes Trump is a symptom of a larger sickness in the United States: an epidemic of myopia, selfishness, and rage. As the avatar of all that, she doesn't think the president can see far enough beyond himself to know that his speeches might have consequences.

"The madness of Trump… As bad as it was, it really needed to happen. We really needed a reflection of our world’s greatest problem, which is not climate change but sociopathy and narcissism," she said. "Especially in America. It’s going to kill the world. It’s not capitalism, it’s narcissism."

She continued, saying that Trump didn't know he was inciting a riot and arguing the rioters were responding to an ongoing "disassociated rage" in the country more than any speech.

"You know, he doesn’t know that he’s inciting a riot and I believe that," she added, saying that Trump has "delusions of grandeur."

"They want to wile out somewhere. And it’s like, we don’t know how to find a way to be wild in our world. And at the same time, the world is so wild," she said of Trump supporters, before noting that the riot was a clear, frightening update on the mental health of the nation.

"We didn’t know that we got half of the country who wants to shoot up the Capitol," Del Rey said. "We didn’t really know that because we never got to see it. I think this gave us the opportunity to see where our level of mental health is at."

Latest in Music