Lana Del Rey poses with gun following 2024 Grammys loss

Lana Del Rey has posted a selfie holding a gun, much to the confusion of fans

Lana Del Rey has shared a photo of herself holding a gun, marking her first post since losing out at the 2024 Grammy Awards.

In an Instagram post on Tuesday 6 February, the “A&W” singer shared a mirror selfie wearing a white bow dress and holding a gun in her right hand. “Always chilllling,” she captioned the post. The photo was shared alongside a poster for Coachella 2024, where she will be headlining this April.

The 38-year-old singer posted the mirror selfie a second time on Tuesday, at the end of a carousel of videos from the 66th annual Grammy Awards. Del Rey - whose real name is Elizabeth Grant - shared a video of herself with Swift and music producer Jack Antonoff celebrating the “Anti-Hero” singer’s win for Album of the Year. One video also showed the female artists posing on the red carpet, while another was a selfie of the “Video Games” singer with Antonoff’s wife, actor Margaret Qualley.

During the awards ceremony, which took place on Sunday 4 February in Los Angeles, Del Rey was nominated for five Grammys, including Album of the Year for Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. The “Born to Die” singer ultimately took home no awards that evening, but she was given a shoutout by Swift while accepting the award for Album of the Year.

Swift asked Del Rey to accompany her on stage, where she praised her fellow nominee as a “legacy artist” and a “legend in her prime right now.” Despite the kind gesture, many fans described the moment as “uncomfortable” considering Del Rey was also nominated for the same category.

Although Del Rey’s recent Instagram post of herself holding a gun caught fans by surprise, some people speculated it was in response to losing out at the Grammys. “Oh the Grammys made her MAD,” one person commented under her Instagram post, while someone else said: “Go get your Grammy back.”

Others believed the controversial post was to promote her upcoming Coachella performance, like one user who said: “Hey girl, what does it feel like to be the biggest headline at the world’s largest festivals?”

Del Rey recently made her Instagram account public again after deactivating all her social media back in 2021. The singer-songwriter explained that the decision was made because other “jobs” that she’s involved in require “privacy and transparency”.

At the time, Del Rey had more than 20 million followers on Instagram. She later returned to the platform with her private account, @honeymoon, before making it public in July 2023.