DISGRACELAND - Lana Del Rey: Three Dark Stories Inspired by an American Risk Taker

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Illicit romance. An abduction. An international manhunt. Starlets, sex appeal, and psychopaths. Sexual liberation and a scandalous story that’s almost too scandalous to talk about. These are some of the dark stories inspired by Lana Del Rey, an artist who doesn’t fit into a box, and whose music and image are as evocative and compelling as the myth she’s built around herself.This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners, including child sexual abuse and domestic violence.There's more about Lana Del Rey coming to your feed on Thursday in the After Party bonus episode. We want to know: Which celebrities have been unfairly treated by the media and by the critics? Why do you think certain artists (particularly female ones) are judged differently by the media? Let us know and join the party at 617-906-6638, [e-mail], or on socials @disgracelandpod.To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com.To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership.Visit www.disgracelandpod.com/merch to see the latest Disgraceland merch!Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTERFollow Jake and DISGRACELAND:InstagramYouTubeX (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan Group To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.

Please check the show notes for more information. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about... one of the most compelling musical artists in modern times. It's also a story about an illicit underage romance, an abduction, and an international manhunt, about sexual liberation and a scandalous story that is almost too scandalous to talk about.

It's a story about a starlet, sex appeal, and psychopaths. And it's also about an artist who doesn't fit into a box, Lana Del Rey, a musician who makes, great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop

from my Melotron called Yacht Funk MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to We Found Love by Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris. And why would I play you that specific slice of

hopeless cheese could I afford it? Because that, was the number one song in America on January 31st, 2012, and that was the day that Lana Del Rey released her debut studio album. An album that announced a new artist who wasn't afraid to risky, to create her own playbook and do it her own way, not how anyone else expected or told her to. On this episode,

illicit romance, an international manhunt, starlets, psychopaths, three dark stories, Stories and Lana Del Rey. I'm Jake Brennan is disgrace land. The title of this episode is Three Dark Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey. Because Lana's music and image are as evocative and compelling as the myth that she's built around her. While researching Lana Del Rey the artist or Elizabeth Grant, that's Lana's birth name, the person, I naturally learned more about what inspired her,

20th century Americana, classic noir, melancholia, romanticism, and the enduring legacy of the American risk taker. Throughout this discovery, I found myself continually prompted to explore the stories of other fascinating women whose histories I may not have otherwise been interested in were it not for Lana Del Rey's powerful songs and visual imagery. These things inspired me, drove my curiosity, and unearthed three incredibly scandalous and true stories about three incredibly scandalous and truly fascinating women.

Lana Turner, Catherine the Great, and Megan Stammers. Each of their stories seemed to me to be ripped straight from the lyrics of a Lana Del Rey song. Now, this episode might have been titled Three Dark Stories That Inspired Lana, Lana Del Rey because given how well-read and history-minded Lana Del Rey is, it's easy to see how the songwriter could have heard these stories I'm about to tell you and been inspired herself to weave them into her songs. But I can't say that with any certainty because Lana Del Rey, like all great artists, isn't particularly forthcoming regarding her lyrics. She keeps it mysterious, which I appreciate, because it allows us to sit back and consider the artist her music and her image more deeply.

The mystery compels us to dream. And let's be honest, Lana Del Rey's music has a certain dream-like quality to it. On January 31st, 2012, Lana Del Rey released her debut major label album, Born to Die. As part of the recording of this album, there is an unreleased track entitled Lolita, which is, of course, a reference to the famous Vladimir Navakoff novel from 1955 of the same name. and the inspiration behind the Stanley Kubrick film adaptation, the one with the iconic imagery of actress Sue Lyon in those cherry red heart-shaped sunglasses on the movie poster.

The same heart-shaped sunglasses, Lana Del Reyve sang about on another unreleased song, the demo, Every Man Gets His Wish, which contains the lyrics, He loves my heart-shaped sunglasses, He loves the shape my heart-shaped ass is. The Lolita theme, is one that Lana has played with numerous times

and numerous songs and videos throughout her career. It's also the subject of many think pieces and message board threads throughout Reddit in the Lanaverse. Navakov's Lolita character is very much the victim. She's a 12-year-old girl who is taken advantage of by an obsessed, out-of-work male teacher. But the Lolita characters Lana Del Rey depicts

are knowing, willing, participants in the illicit romances they're entangled in. And at least in Lana's depictions, these young women are not without agency. In yet another unreleased Lana Del Rey song, prom song, gone wrong. The lyrics go, I knew you loved me by the way you looked in second period. I'd see you in the halls like, hello, hello, up against the wall like, let's go, let's go. And then in another song entitled boarding school, Lana sings, Let's do drugs, make love with our teachers. Boarding school was Kent School in Connecticut.

Where, if we're to believe the myth, Lana Del Rey was sent to attend as a 14-year-old, in part to overcome her alcoholism and bad girl behavioral issues. Lana graduated in 2003. Of her time there, she has spoken about an older man, a teacher who had an outsized influence on her. honor. A man by the name of Gene Campbell, whom Lana says was her only friend in school, a time when she was excessively lonely. He was 22. She was 15. He'd drive her around in his car and turn her on to music

and literature she'd never heard or heard of. Tupac, Biggie, Whitman, and Novakoff. Lana has said about this teacher, quote, We read Lolita, and it changed my world. Unquote. Neither Lana nor her teacher has confirmed or denied any inappropriate relationship, but Lana's quotes don't exactly depict a helpless Lolita. They describe a curious, literary-minded young girl, perhaps dangerously infatuated, much like another young girl, a 14-year-old student from East Sussex, England, named Megan Stammers. There's no way for me to know whether Lana Delray is aware of the incredible story of Megan Stammer's, or if Megan's story inspired Lana in any way, or whether Megan was inspired by Lana's Lolita fascination, but you can be the judge.

In 2012, 14-year-old Megan Stammers was a normal sophomore at the Bishop Bell School in Coastal England. She listened to music, kept up with her studies, and exchanged crushes with boys her own age. Then she got caught up in an obsessive and illicit romance with her 30-year-old math professor, Jeremy Forrest. Jeremy was, by 14-year-old girl standards, the cool professor. He had a tattoo. He was into Nirvana. He fumbled through the chords of heart-shaped box on acoustic guitar.

He even got up on stage locally for the occasional gig, where he mumbled what we can only assume he believed to be witty lyrics for songs titled, all my friends are astronauts and arrows and hearts. Megan was smitten. Jeremy showed her extra attention on a school trip. Megan couldn't believe that this older, mature, seemingly worldly man would be interested in her. She was obsessed.

She needed to know everything about him. She followed him on Twitter, and he followed her back. And soon, through direct messages, that had a separate line of communication outside of the classroom. And it was through that separate and direct line of communication that Megan received an invitation from Jeremy to go on a drive. And that drive led to deep conversations. Well, as deep as a 14-year-old and a 30-year-old can get, I guess,

but Megan felt seen. Now, up to this point, Megan had developed an eating disorder and hadn't told anyone but Jeremy, and Jeremy apparently knew just what to say to Megan to make her feel better about her situation. The drive turned into subsequent drives, which turned into long walks by the ocean in the seaside town where Megan went to school. And those walks eventually led to a first kiss, just after Megan's 15th birthday, to her teacher, a man twice her age. Jeremy somehow convinced his wife that it was okay for Megan, his student,

to hang around the house to watch TV, do her homework, and listen to music. Jeremy convinced Megan that he was on the outs with his wife and that his marriage would soon be over. It was in Jeremy and his wife's spare bedroom where the teacher first had sex with the 15-year-old student. That act, in the subsequent times they had sex, only increased Megan's obsession with her teacher.

As she recounted the story, that time in her life was a romantic blur of, quote, car rides, kisses, and out-of-town cinema trips, unquote. Car rides, kisses, and cinema. Sounds like images from Alana del Rey Vidia. Megan described this point in her relationship with Jeremy as the point at which their escape fantasy took hold. They dreamed lovingly of a life outside of the town where they lived and worked and where everyone knew them

to a place where they could live in love anonymously despite their age difference, and they settled on France. Back in school, of course, the rumors started to fly, and then the police took an interest. Then they questioned Megan and her mother, and then they questioned Jeremy and his wife. The writing was on the wall. The pieces started to click in. into place for Megan's friends and family, and the same went for Jeremy's colleagues, all that time that the teacher was spending with that young girl.

Of course, how would they not seen it? Judgment would be swift. From Megan's point of view, the fact that she loved Jeremy would have nothing to do with how authorities treated the situation. Jeremy would go to jail, and Jeremy couldn't have that, so Jeremy and Megan went on the run. Like some modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, inspired not by Bank Vault riches,

but by the illicit romance of Navakos, Lolita. Megan and Jeremy racing through the night, away from that dreary English town and off to France. The trajectory of Megan's young love life begins with her on an East Sussex beach, like Lana Del Rey in the music video for her song, West Coast, twirling on that beach with an age-appropriate crush, and then off into the dark. fleeing in the passenger seat of a vampiric older man's car,

like Lana Del Rey in her shades of cool video. Megan, being driven off toward an uncertain future, the romance of it all compelling her. The missing schoolgirl and the 30-year-old teacher who abducted her triggered an international manhunt in September of 2012. It took only seven days for authorities to find Megan and Jeremy in the French city of Bordeaux. Their short-lived life on the run ended.

with Jeremy's arrest and Megan's return to her parents. Jeremy got five and a half years in prison, but the sentencing didn't quell Megan's romance. She wrote Jeremy multiple love letters that were intercepted by prison authorities. And Megan even attempted to visit Jeremy in jail, but she was denied. Megan blamed herself for Jeremy's incarceration, saying that she initiated the relationship and suggested they run away together. It's funny what inspiration will do.

As young adults, we see ourselves in the songs and in the books that we listen to and read. It's fantasy. It's escapism. Megan Stammer's obsession was inspired and was definitely misplaced, regardless of where it came from. Be it Nirvana's heart-shaped box or Lana Delray and Lolita's heart-shaped sunglasses. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.

And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit here. by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get

what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up, to me and they want to be an act or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary.

I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going. And the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and scrote. I immediately know that I've been a sleepwalking. David O'Yellow.

I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone.

These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it, and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network.

Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lana Del Rey enters the pool in slow motion in a retro one-piece bathing suit. It's a sexually charged moment in a music video filled with sexually charged moments. Lama's video for her 2012 single, Blue Jeans. There's her lover, tall, thin, cut, fully illustrated in the flesh with tattoos everywhere over his hands and face. He strips down to his underwear before taking to the pool himself. His tattooed hand reaches for Lana's neck, but then she takes his fingers into her mouth. The couple acts as though they're all alone in that pool, but they aren't.

There's an alligator swimming below them. Lana is unfazed. Great sex, like great art, is sometimes a risk. As the video continues, Lana breaks from her lover and swims with the alligator beneath the surface. She rise in her bathing suit, pressing her flesh against the animal's long, jagged. tale. The interpretation is that the violent-looking illustrated man is enough. Only the savage man-eating beast can satiate. Lana Del Rey is myth-building. The symbolism of the hinted beastiality, that power dynamic, inspired me to wonder what Lana Del Rey's thoughts, if any, might have been

during the making of this video, about one of the most powerful women of all time, Catherine the great in the mythology surrounding that particular royal sexual appetite and one of the most scandalous rumors of all time. It was July and it was hot, a rare early summer heatwave in St. Petersburg, the seat of the Russian Empire in 1796. The young man waited in the apartment located inside the palace. He was unsure what to do with himself in his new home. He was even unsure about how long this would be his new home. All he knew was that he could live here indefinitely, and he could do whatever he wanted so long as he made himself available at all times sexually to the empress who lived in the adjacent apartment. The young man had not yet met the

empress known as Catherine the Great. He'd only met her countess. An encounter he enjoyed very much despite the countess's age. She put the young man through his sexual paces. It was thrilling being with an older woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it. The countess wasn't as old as the empress, though. The empress was 67. The countess's job was to give the young man a trial run to see if he was up to satisfying the empress. And that meant two things, size and stamina. The young man passed his royal audition on both counts.

So here sat this virile young man in his new apartment, and pondering the rumors he'd heard about his new lover, the Empress of Russia, whom he'd never met. The rumors that she was insatiable, that she demanded sex up to seven times a day, that the Empress, if it pleased her, would make a cast of his elephant-time penis and use that to satisfy her on occasion as well,

on those days when he, her young lover, wasn't able to keep up with her. What was true about the Empress and what was myth wasn't all that hard for the young man to sort out. Much of what Catherine the Great had accomplished in her 67 years was already part of the modern historical record. She married into the royal family and outsmarted and some say overthrew her dim-witted sexually inadequate

and sadistic animal-torturing husband Peter III. Peter couldn't perform sexually. Every time he got hard, he experienced excruciating pain. He took that pain out on helpless animals, dogs, and cats, dismembering them for fun, relishing the pain he inflicted. Catherine mercilessly deposed him and set about to remake the Russian Empire in her own image. She conquered new lands. In the south, she annexed Crimea and colonized large swaths of land for strategic outposts to fend off

the Ottomans. She partitioned Poland and moved as far east as Alaska. She modernized much of Russia in lockstep with Western European progress. She was an early advocate of the smallpox vaccine, which saved countless lives. She was a patron of the arts, a correspondent and a confidon of Voltaire, one of the great writers and thinkers of the day. And Catherine the Great acquired and wielded this great power while tearing through an extensive line of lovers, beautiful and sometimes powerful men, whom she betted not only for sexual confidence, but sometimes for strategic purposes as well.

Generals and nobles who help quell palace coups and put down regional uprisings. The older Catherine got, the younger her lovers got, as a young man waiting dutifully in his new apartment well knew. She was insatiable. Youthful vigor was necessary to satisfy the aging empress, and her satisfaction didn't go unrewarded. Many, upon being discarded after fulfilling their duties, were rewarded handsomely for their efforts,

but always materially, never with any real power, cash, servants, homes, but never with anything that would diminish Catherine's reign in any way. From where the young man sat, it was tough to judge the sexual rumors surrounding Catherine.

They called her a deviant, but really was any of her behavior worse than what was whispered about the men who'd reigned previously here in Russia or elsewhere? The Ottoman Emperor, Abraham the Mad, was said to have had a harem of 280 women. On a whim one day, he decided he was bored, so he had them all executed. Then he took their skin and sewed them into sacks.

Rome's emperor Caligula was said to have been infatuated with all three of his sisters, each of whom he slept with. And King Herod, that story was possibly the most disturbing. As it goes, he was supposedly driven so mad with jealousy, by his wife Miriam that he had her killed, then preserved her dead body in honey, and proceeded to have sex with it for seven more years after his wife died. So what if Catherine the Great made her armed guards erect and paraded them past her for an expensive thrill? So what if she had replications of her favorite past lover's cocks carved into her wood furniture? So what if the empress found herself

dissatisfied with all of her lovers after a lifetime of sex on demand numerous times per day, every day. And so what if Catherine the Great eventually turned away from men for satisfaction in favor of a horse? The 67-year-old empress lay there on the bed, fully exhilarated. The bed had been brought down from one of the royal apartments into the barn adjacent to the stables. Then the horse suspended above her on straps, was being carefully lowered by a group of muscular royal guards. The horse's member was larger. I can't do it. I won't do it as much as I want to do it.

I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to dramatize the death of Catherine the Great, crushed by the horse she was attempting to copulate with. But that is the story, or rather the myth. that this 67-year-old woman, one of the most powerful women the world has ever known, died in one of the most scandalous ways possible. I don't believe it. It's too lurid and honestly too out of character. Catherine the Great may have been insatiable,

but unlike King Herod, Caligula, and Emperor Ibrahim the Mad, Catherine wasn't deranged. Her actions indicate quite the opposite. She may have been ruthless at times, but she was measured, thoughtful, and strategic, all qualities that contravene derangement. Catherine the Great was not just the powerful woman in an age when powerful women were few and far between.

She was a beacon of independence, standing tall and strong in a world designed to suppress women. Beyond her power, she was truly independent and sexually liberated, a testament to her strength and resilience. Catherine the Great died of a stroke, likely on her toilet. But that story wasn't scandalous enough. The rumors of her shocking demise with the horrors and of her so-called sexual deviancy are, in my opinion, nothing more than a historical smear campaign by jealous and petty men from that era,

aimed at discrediting one of the most accomplished women of all time. Catherine the Great's reign should not be fodder for discrediting myths. The Empress's illustrious reign should instead inspire free-thinking women everywhere, as I believe it did Lana Del Rey, a woman who has been hell-bent on making her own myth since bursting on the scene with a borrowed name from another powerful woman. A woman with ties to another incredible story. This one also very scandalous, but this time, very true. We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.

I felt like I got hit by it. a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come off, to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do?

Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going. And the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and scream.

I immediately know that I've been to sleepwalk. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear,

not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face,

and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it, and you're like,

I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lana Turner was so hot that men literally walked into walls when they saw her walking down Hollywood Boulevard. They drove off of the boulevard and crashed their cars into walls. And they flocked to movie theaters in droves to gawk at the curvy, Starlet and imagine themselves alone with her for only a few seconds.

This was due to Lana Turner's natural beauty and how director Mervyn Leroy chose to capture her with his camera and her first appearance on screen in his 1937 film, They Won't Forget. The director filmed the actress very deliberately in a way that accentuated her body, which seems so obvious these days that it's not even worth mentioning, but in 1936. it was revolutionary. Sydney Sweeney, Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson, Kim Kardashian hell,

even Lana Del Rey, pick your modern-day A-list sex symbol. And believe me, when it comes to their impact, none of them have their grip on the collective male libido like Lana Turner did back in the 40s and 50s. And this is the woman Lana Del Rey

chose to take her stage name from. When choosing a stage name, Lana Del Rey had a vision. She said she, quote, wanted a name she could shape the music towards. Del Rey is taken from the name of a car, two cars actually, but that's not important. The point is that Del Rey sounds American, and Lana sounds, well, hot. Lana Turner's hotness was a magnet for a long line of suitors. Tarzan's Lex Barker, one of the most famous men of the era, who ended up being Lana's second husband.

Howard Hughes, Frank Sinatra, allegedly a married Clark Gable, and most infamously, the gangster, Johnny Stomponado. Johnny Stomponado was a killer, a killer who worked for L.A. crime boss, Bicky Cohen. If you've seen the Academy Award-winning film L.A. Confidential, you'll see Johnny Stompinado depicted on screen getting his ball squeezed literally by Russell Crowe's Bud White character. Johnny is seated across from a woman playing none other than Lana Turner. Johnny was a bad guy and not just on the street. At home, behind closed doors, he beat on his beautiful girlfriend. Lana had a hard time finding her way out of the relationship. So in 1957, she took an acting gig all the way over in London,

starring opposite a handsome young actor named Sean Connery. It's long been rumored that the two quickly became involved romantically on set of that film, another time, another place. And those rumors started way back in 1957, and Johnny Stompinado heard them all the way across the pond back in Hollywood. Incensed, he grabbed his gun and boarded a flight for London. He arrived on set, pulled out his gun, and went straight for Sean Connery. Stompinato was a hard man, but Connery was a different type of tough.

He'd grown up fighting off violent street gangs in Edinburgh, he was a traditional, truck driver, a lifeguard, a boxing instructor, a bodybuilder, a gym instructor in the British Army, and a tattooed fighter in the Royal Navy. Skinny Hollywood hoods with greasy pompadors and tiny pistols did not intimidate Sean Connery. Sean Conner was in the middle of filming a scene with Lana Turner, and they were embracing on a couch. Johnny Stompanada walked right into the shoot with his gun drawn, straight at Connery, telling him to get his hands off his girl. Connery quickly grabbed Stompano's wrist and twisted it hard until he dropped his gun. He walled him with a right hook and escorted him off the set and into the custody of Scotland

Yard, which wasted no time in deporting Johnny Stompinado back to Los Angeles. When Lana returned home, the real fighting began. As her relationship with the gangster progressed, so too did the volatility and violence. It was too much to handle for Lana's 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl, who lived with her. The fighting was endless, and Cheryl heard it all. When the beating ceased to have the effect he was looking for, Johnny would resort to threats. He told Lana he would cut her face to ribbons with a knife

if she didn't do what she was told. The point being, he'd disfigure her so badly she'd never work in Hollywood again. Lana fought back, and Johnny took a razor blade to her cheek and held it there. Still, Lana was obstinate. Cheryl heard everything. She was living in constant fear. When Lana left her second husband, Tarzan's Lex Barker,

Cheryl had been relieved by her mother's choice of the gangster Johnny Stompinado. Anything would be better than Lex, who repeatedly raped Cheryl as a young girl. But Stompinado's presence proved to be its own type of hell. Fear, ever-present violence, the constant threat of an anvil hanging over her head. Johnny Stomponado was a 24-7 problem. When he wasn't beating on Cheryl's mother,

he was threatening to slice her to pieces. And when Stompinato wasn't threatening Lana Turner, he was threatening Cheryl. Lana wouldn't listen, Lana wouldn't respond to the beatings, Lana wouldn't respond to the threats, then Stompinato would threaten to cut up Lana's daughter as well. Cheryl couldn't believe what she was hearing behind closed doors.

I'll cut you so bad that no one will be able to tell it to you anymore. You'll never work again. Your daughter's next. It was unhinged, depraved, horrifying to the young girl who crept up to the door that separated her from the war going on on the other side between her mother, the movie star, and her mother's boyfriend, the gangster.

Cheryl gripped tighter the knife she'd grabbed as she passed through the kitchen. It was just for protection, she thought. A last resort. As the screaming raged on the other side of the door, Cheryl stood there helpless, squeezing the knife. She couldn't open the door. She was paralyzed. The door burst open, and Cheryl's mom, Lana, burst through it and passed by her. Her psychopathic boyfriend Johnny Stompano lunged after Lana and into the outstretched knife-wielding hand of 14-year-old Cheryl Turner. The knife pierced the gangster's stomach.

Blood spilled out, drenching his silk shirt. His eyes went wide. Cheryl's mouth fell open with a near silent gasp. And behind her, Lana Turner screamed as her lover, Johnny Stompanado, fell dead to the floor. Immature, shallow, messy. The worst concert experience of my life. A bad mashup of John Mellencamp and Kesha. All these criticisms and more have been hurled at Lana Delray.

Pitchfork called her debut major label album, Born to Die, quote, the album equivalent of a fake orgasm. Actress and musician Juliette Lewis, after watching Lana Del Rey's infamous debut Saturday Night Live performance, tweeted out, Wow, watching this quote singer on SNL is like watching a 12-year-old in their bedroom when they're pretending to sing and perform. Hashtag sign of our times. Some of this criticism was warranted, namely the bad reviews of Lana's SNL performance, but most of it is ridiculous. All art is subjective, but not all art needs to fit neatly into a box, which is what our critics want for our pop stars. But when Lana Del Rey first burst into the mainstream with Born to Die, there was no obvious box.

In fact, to the extent that there was a figurative box, it wasn't one that many critics wanted to touch. Lana Del Rey was a dream you never knew you wanted to have. A Tumblr account come to life in the form of a pop star. A boardwalk bad girl, a Catholic school slut, a Lolita with AP English smarts who swam with alligators and walked over beats in Nancy Sinatra's boots. Lana Del Rey is the best kind of an artist. the kind who takes chances, the kind who isn't afraid to risk it. More importantly, she's unafraid to risk it in public, in front of us, for us.

Failure, falling down creatively. It's an unfortunate but inevitable outcome for this type of artist. Yes, it is, as NPR said of Lana, messy. But an artist shouldn't be criticized for being messy. Quite the opposite. The best examples of that include, Bob Dylan, Kirk Cobain, and Prince. I could go on and on.

I believe that for all their pro-feminism, the future is female, trendy claims of girl power. The mainstream press, at least when it comes to Lana Del Rey, an artist playing with a nostalgic vision of America that the coastal elite media these days sees as reductive, the media's criticism of this female artist is, well, hypocritical, and kind of misogynistic. It strikes me as weird that a 20,000,

First Century female artist with such a strong point of view and such obvious mass appeal would be so viciously criticized by a media that typically champions strong women. But Lana Del Rey doesn't fit into anyone's box. Lana Del Rey doesn't fit anyone else's vision of what a female pop singer should be. Lana Del Rey has always had her own vision of who Lana Del Rey is. She creates from her own playbook. And that type of creator, that type of artist has always been hard for simple-minded critics to understand.

Nabokov's Lolita was panned. Shipments of the book were seized upon entering the United Kingdom in France. Critics called the book sheer unrestrained pornography. Yet the novel has lived on as one of the most enduring and consequential works of fiction ever written. We are still talking about it and referencing it and arguing about it to this day. Catherine the Great was such an effective female leader that her legacy was subjected to a centuries-long smear campaign. And Lana Turner, her star power, her sexuality.

The men in her life simply could not handle it, to the point where she was almost murdered, to the point where her 14-year-old daughter had to kill a man for the two women to survive. Whether these stories that I just told you were inspired by Lana Del Rey or whether they inspired Lana Del Rey herself, the powerful female subjects at the center of them, all share a common element with Lana Del Rey. They broke the mold. Criticizing an artist for doing so would be a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan.

It's disgrace land. Thanks for listening to this week's episode on Lana Del Rey, a one-of-a-kind artist who, as you can hear from this episode, was unfairly in my estimation, treated by the press. This week's question of the week to you guys is, Which entertainers, artists, rock stars, actors, athletes do you think have been unfairly treated by the media, by the critics? And why does the media seem to judge some entertainers differently than others,

particularly female entertainers? 617-906-66-6-3-8, leave me a voicemail, send me a text, and let me know. You can also reach me at Disgraceland Pod as well on Instagram, X, and Facebook. Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts for Spotify and win some free merch. All right, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelampod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.

We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at DisgracelandPod.

Rock a roll. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific content, artist. They take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? You'd rather be disappointed in.

Do that. David O'Yelloo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gait and Moderato from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone. Carrie Kenny Silver. and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court. On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, You're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.