“Well, try and stay away,” Lana Del Rey told a woman whose sign said she was fleeing an abusive relationship, after handing her what appeared to be a $100 bill at a Los Angeles traffic light on October 25.
Del Rey was filming herself listening to Tate McRae’s “Rubberband” when the woman approached her car on Highland Avenue and put the sign against her window. The song happened to include a reference to the same street: “Midnight driving, running through highland.”
“You got me when I was filming,” Del Rey told her. The woman asked the singer’s name, and Del Rey introduced herself.
“God bless you. Thank you so much,” the woman said. Del Rey also cautioned her to “be careful.”
After closing the window, Del Rey told the camera, “I was not expecting that,” and explained what the sign said. She later shared the encounter on Instagram Stories, noting the coincidence of hearing McRae’s Highland lyric while stopped on Highland.
Del Rey has defended her own writing about emotionally abusive relationships. In a May 2020 Instagram post, she pushed back on accusations that her music glamorized abuse, describing herself as “just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very prevalent emotionally abusive relationships.”