Lana Del Rey has said that a backpack containing her computer and multiple hard drives was stolen from her car in Los Angeles.
Speaking in an Instagram Live video, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter revealed: “A few months ago, I parked my car on Melrose Place and I stepped away for a minute. And the one time I left my backpack inside my car, someone broke all of the windows and took it.
“Inside of it was my computer and my three camcorders and my hard drives.”
The theft resulted in the loss of various pieces of unfinished work, including unreleased music and a 200-page book manuscript that Del Rey was writing for publishers Simon & Schuster. She also lost family footage that was stored on the camcorders.
“I had to remotely wipe the computer that had my 200-page book for Simon & Schuster – which I didn’t have backed up on the cloud,” she explained.
“And despite that, people are still able to remotely access my phone and leak our songs and personal photos.”
Despite the setback, Del Rey added that she is still hard at work on her ninth album, the follow-up to 2021’s Blue Banisters. “I just want to mention that despite all of this happening, I am confident in the record to come – despite so many safety factors in so many different levels,” she said.
“I really want to persist and make the best art I can.”
She implored fans not to pay attention to any leaks that may result from the theft. “Please don’t listen to the music if you hear it, because it’s not coming out yet,” Del Rey said.
“And in terms of the book, I loved the book that I lost with all of my heart and put a lot of passion into it, and in terms of the camcorders, we shall see what happens with that.”
Del Rey is set to appear on Taylor Swift’s “Snow on the Beach” on new album Midnights, released this Friday 21 October.
In a four-star review last October, The Independent‘s Ben Bryant wrote that Blue Banisters “is far more elliptical and mysterious than it first appears”. In May, Del Rey revealed that her next record had been inspired by feelings of “anger”.
