Lana Del Rey Wishes Her Album ‘Had Gone as Viral’ as That Waffle House Video

Of all the incredible things Lana Del Rey has given us this year — an excellent album, her first concerts in over three years, even more “Snow on the Beach” — her greatest (if not inadvertent) gift might’ve been a brief, unofficial stint working at a Waffle House in Florence, Alabama. 

Back in July, videos and photos emerged of Del Rey sporting a Waffle House uniform — complete with a hastily-assembled LANA name tag — chatting with customers and her temporary co-workers, and even serving up a few dishes. It was, for lack of a more imaginative, let alone fitting term, iconic. It’s arguably up there on the unexpected-yet-relatable matrix with the time she showed up to the Grammys in a dress she bought at Dillard’s.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Del Rey finally explained how the whole Waffle House situation came about. Earlier this summer, she spent about week in Florence, and most mornings she, her brother, and her sister would rock up to the Waffle House, eat, and chat. The day the unexpected shift was offered, Del Rey said, “We were on our third hour, and the servers asked, ‘Do you guys want shirts?’ Hell yeah! We were thrilled.”

She also offered a few more details about one of the videos that emerged from the unexpected shift, though it wasn’t totally clear which one. In one, she hands something to a customer and frets over the recording, just in case the man doesn’t want to be filmed; while in another, she kneels next to a different customer and sings a bit of “Amazing Grace” with him.

Either way, Del Rey recalled: “This guy, a regular, comes in every day and orders two things, so they were like, ‘Just go get it for him!’ I brought him a Coke. No ice. And an empty cup… For dip.” 

Later in the interview, Del Rey joked about the firestorm the footage caused online at the time, saying she wished her most recent album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd?, “had gone as viral.” She continued: “I woke up to, like, 10,000 texts the next morning — some from folks I had not heard from for 10 years. ‘Saw your picture at the Waffle House!’ I was like, ‘Did you hear the new album?’”