Vamp of Constant Sorrow? Lana Del Rey

The “saddest, baddest diva in rock” lands on the cover of Rolling Stone hitting stands tomorrow. Lana Del Rey, photographed by Theo Wenner and seductively cuddling a cat, has made headlines lately for her tepid relationship with the press. In a blog teaser to the story, Rolling Stone reveals that Del Rey tried to wiggle out of her cover.

She landed in hot water after romanticizing dying young, telling UK standard The Guardian, when speaking on Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, “I wish I was dead already.” She did a fair amount of backpedaling when the backlash hit, the most cringe-worthy of which was when she defended the statement on Twitter to Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean. Ultimately, she blamed the press for leading questions.

In a since-deleted tweet, Del Rey admitted either her ambivalence for press, or an outright disdain for the process – or both: “I didn’t want to do an interview, but the journalist was persistent.”

While that debacle might have made anyone else lay low for a bit, Del Rey went through with the Rolling Stone cover anyway. Not without letting us know she’s not at all interesting, however.

“I’m not sure if they should run this story,” she tells senior writer Brian Hiatt. “I feel like maybe we should wait until there’s something good to talk about. You know? I just wish you could write about something else. There has to be someone else to be the cover story. Like, there has to be. Anybody.”

Judging by the collection of fantastic descriptors Rolling Stone uses for the ethereal chanteuse (“vamp of constant sorrow”), there’s only one thing we know for sure about Del Rey: She won’t let us in, and that’s wrapping the public around her little finger.

Being aloof is really the only play she has at the moment, and she knows it. The discovery that she wasn’t the trailer park princess she presented when she busted out onto the scene caught her flack, but not for long. Del Rey easily inhabited the image she created for herself, which, to a degree, all rock stars do.

The fact that she’s self-aware enough to know that no one’s interested in a rich-kid success story shows a great deal of control. She gives the press just enough to be able to avoid getting deep, which leaves readers wanting more. And it’s more she won’t give us. I can’t help but admire her for that.

Well, her or her publicist.