Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo have been vocal about their love of Lana Del Rey, and shared on multiple occasions that she has carved a path for their respective stars to rise. And the love is mutual, Del Rey revealed in a new interview published in The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday (Sept. 20).
“Billie and Olivia are such good people, it’s f–king awesome. I love them and their music. It’s not like you have to be nice to be good [in music]. But, if you happen to be nice and a great singer, it makes me happy for the culture,” the six-time Grammy nominee replied when asked how it feels knowing the girls credit her as inspiration.
She added, “I always had girls telling me [things like] that. Maybe not the critics or anybody else — but singers I knew, no matter how big or small, would write me letters. I always felt like the older sister to pretty much everyone I ever met.”
Elsewhere in the feature, Rodrigo — who presented Del Rey with the Visionary Award at the 2023 Billboard Women in Music Awards in March — shared, “Lana’s work taught me how effective sentimentality can be in songwriting … She defies any stereotypes of what a woman writing pop songs should or shouldn’t be. She’s constantly pushing boundaries and making work that is fresh, adventurous and unabashedly feminine.”
Del Rey also briefly addressed going viral for working at Waffle House in Alabama, and how she wanted her recent album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, to receive even a fraction of the attention. “I wish my album had gone as viral,” she stated, adding that she received “10,000 texts” after the photos and videos of her working hit the internet.
