What’s going on with Lana Del Rey and Ethel Cain?

As if 2025 didn’t feel dystopian enough already, now your favourite artists are turning on one another. Last month Tyler, The Creator unfollowed Frank Ocean on Instagram, Nicki Minaj and SZA are publicly feuding, and now there’s trouble in Laurel Canyon, too. 

Lana Del Rey seems to be releasing a diss track aimed at Ethel Cain, as teased on social media yesterday (August 14). Taken from her upcoming 10th album, the song (produced by Jack Antonoff) opens with the lyrics: “Ethel Cain hated my Instagram post, think it’s cute reenacting my Chicago post.” 

Online, fans are speculating that the Instagram post she’s referring to also takes a dig at ex-boyfriend Jack Donoghue. In 2022, back when Del Rey and Donoghue were reportedly dating, the singer posted a picture of the couple together outside Chicago’s Cook County Jail. Soon after, Cain also shared a photo of herself with Donoghue before deleting it again. 

Hours after Lana shared her snippet of the new track, Cain took to her own Instagram, seemingly acknowledging the singer’s diss. She wrote: “Update: Lana Del Rey has blocked Ethel Cain on Instagram.” 

Today (August 14), Del Rey has further explained the lyrics, claiming that Cain used to body shame her. “I don’t know who Ethel was until a few years ago – when someone brought to my attention the disturbing and graphic side-by-side images she would often put up of me next to unflattering creatures and cartoon characters making constant comments about my weight, I was confused at what she was getting at,” she wrote in an Instagram comment. “Then when I heard what she was saying behind closed doors from mutual friends and started inserting herself into my personal life I was definitely disturbed.”

Later in the diss track, Del Rey also sings: “The most famous girl at the Waffle House/ I don’t regret it/ The most famous girl at the Waffle House”, potentially pointing to a New York Times profile of Cain, which was headlined The Most Famous Girl At The Waffle House. The article was published in 2022, the same year that both images were posted on Instagram and the year that some fans think the song was originally written. Potentially titled “All About Ethel”, online fandoms claim that this could be an unreleased song from three years ago, resurfacing now for the new album. 

In 2023, a year after the New York Times profile, Del Rey went viral across social media after being spotted working as a waitress in a waffle house. She later claimed that the waitressing gig was unplanned and the staff had given her a t-shirt. 

Cain has long credited Del Rey as a big influence of hers, even sharing covers of her music, such as Born To Die. However, Cain has also made some controversial comments on social media towards Del Rey. When one fan wrote “Lana Del Rey walked so Ethel Cain could run”, Cain responded by saying “I pushed her over when I ran past” and “She’ll never catch up to me in her Macy’s dress.” 

Are Ethel Cain and Lana Del Rey this summer’s answer to Drake and Kendrick? They’ll make the sad girls even weepier if so. At least, if Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham can make up after five decades (and just look at Oasis), there’s hope for these two yet.