This sad tale of divorced maidens at arms begins at the heart of all great tragedies: a man…
Enter: Jack Donoghue, a co-founder of the electronic band Salem. In July 2022, Donoghue posted a picture with Lana Del Rey, outside of Cook County Jail in Chicago. At the time, Ethel Cain’s debut album, “Preacher’s Daughter,” had just gained an indie-rock cult following, many of whom also enjoyed “Mother” Del Rey’s classics that had similar melancholic overtones. It was rumored for some time that Donoghue and Cain were linked, but shortly after the jailbreak photo, Hayden (Ethel Cain) posted a picture of her and Donoghue with a similar surrounding landscape captioned: “OK wait my turn,” evidently in response.
Del Rey, formerly Lizzy Grant, debuted her first album, “Born to Die,” on Jan. 27, 2012, launching her into stardom. Even still, she sits as the reigning queen of girl bloggers everywhere on Tumblr. Her songs, to this day, have the same effect, hitting hard for tweens everywhere with their composed gusto of poeticism. There are songs of genius, highlighting the unfortunate Americana of the starlit past; almost a cosplay of the most seductive avenues of the hyperbolic American dream, and the dark underbelly of the broken down life of The State’s failure.
In Del Rey’s first album, “Born To Die,” she sprinkled in eloquent themes of Nabokov’s “Lolita,” romanticizing her own life truth of pursuing toxic, older men and infantilising the real-life tragedy and abuse of “Lolita.” In September 2024, Del Rey was granted her red, white and blue picnic wedding. She married Floridian alligator tourist, Jeremy Dufrene, who allegedly wears a MAGA (Make America Great Again) hat on tours. Dufrene has a past of transphobic, and republican-leaning tweets, reflecting onto Del Rey’s pale image, especially when she has never opposed nor stated anything to the contrary of those conservative values.
Hayden Silas Anhedönia, stage name Ethel Cain, is a powerhouse singer-songwriter and the cause of my personal continuing obsession with crucifixes. She was born in the deep south of Florida and grew up in Alabama as a transgender woman, leading her to discuss her first-person themes of religious, social, and sexual trauma in the character narrative of Ethel Cain’s life, loves, and cannibalization in her debut album, “Preacher’s Daughter.” Ever the social advocate, Anhedönia often voices her strong humanitarian views and human rights beliefs, advocating for Palestinians and trans women’s health, etc…she has a deep online digital footprint, with a very beloved Youtube Channel, and (now inactive) Tumblr account. She has always been clear who her real audience is. In 2022 she blasted through the Sabrina Carpenter-ed hyper pop mainstream, with her country gothic, doom metal themes of “Preacher’s Daughter,” leading to her real-life and consequently life on social media to be combed through.
In July 2025, news broke of unearthed racist posts on Tumblr from Anhedönia, made when she was a teenager. These posts contained her admission of having used the n-word in the past, and “build the wall” references directed towards people of Latin descent. In response, she uploaded and took accountability in a lengthy essay link uploaded to her social media. Anhedönia addressed the ongoing slander she was receiving as a result of it as well. Calling out transphobic, and manipulations against her personhood. She then took full accountability, noting that as a white woman from the south there is no excuse except self-imposed ignorance. Since then there have been numerous articles and press releases surrounding Anhedönia’s public humiliation, those of which were calming down by mid August.
On the day of Aug. 14, 2025, the second plane hit, Del Rey posted a Reel on Instagram where, in the background she teases a new song off her soon-to-be-released album. The name-dropping lyrics startled fans when they heard, “Ethel Cain hated my Instagram post, think it’s cute reenacting my Chicago pose.” She was referring to the photos of them both separately posing in pictures with Donoghue. Immediately fans were shocked from what felt like an unprompted attack, considering the pictures are from 2022, and an addition to the “transphobic smear campaign” Anhedönia was receiving online. Del Rey then responded to a fan’s comment with a lengthy explanation of alleged fatphobic-edited memes she accused Anhedönia of reposting. These reposted memes have yet to be found, and Del Rey took further action by blocking Anhedönia on Instagram, announced by the latter in a “ragebait” style Instagram story.
For now, we will have to wait to see what Del Rey’s unreleased song makes of Cain. The implications however, are of a cis woman making a diss track about a trans woman which, during this particular political climate and active government attempts at silencing trans women, is in extremely poor taste. I hate to say it, but I am not surprised by Del Rey’s messy bitchery. She has always told the audience who she is in her songs, a girl that romanticizes traditional repressive gender roles. As listeners, it is very easy to write it off lyrics as satyr, but her actions do not counteract the lyrics that could be the satirical parodies of a Tradwife wannabe.