When he's not busy producing hit songs and collaborating with the biggest names in music, Jack Antonoff apparently finds time to side hustle as muse for love.
That's what Lana Del Rey revealed when she presented her friend and longtime collaborator with the Producer of the Decade award at Variety’s eighth-annual Hitmakers event in Los Angeles this weekend. While speaking about Antonoff at the ceremony, Del Rey made it clear that the prolific producer has impacted her life not just professionally, but personally, too.
The "Say Yes to Heaven" singer made a rare comment about her relationship with her husband, Jeremy Dufrene, during the short speech, calling Antonoff's relationship with his wife, actress Margaret Qualley, as "a big reason" her love life has turned out the way it has.
“I’m grateful for [Antonoff] for the example he gave me in his marriage to [Margaret Qualley],” Del Rey explained. “I saw the way he looked at her when he met her, and he’s a big reason why I waited so long to get married, and why I met my amazing husband.”
@varietymagazine Lana Del Rey says Jack Antonoff is a "big reason why I waited so long to get married and why I met my amazing husband. And I really feel like there's kind of a singer's curse around meeting an honest partner who has no skin in the game, no dog in the race, and it's super nerve-racking to have to hold onto an innocent perception of how things could go when you're in an industry where maybe your values or your morals don't quite match up with what's going on." | Variety Hitmakers presented by AFEELA
♬ original sound - Variety
“I feel like there’s a singers’ curse around meeting an honest partner who has no skin in the game, no dog in the race,” she continued. “It’s super nerve-wracking to hold on to an innocent perception of how things could go when you’re in an industry where maybe your values and your morals don’t quite match up with what’s going on. Especially when people think you probably don’t have any morals or values.”
Del Rey married Dufrene, an alligator tour guide who she met in 2019, in September, but rarely discusses her relationship publicly, but commented in October that he's her "one and only" and "amazing," before adding simply, "And we’re very happy."
And while many of Del Rey's fans were already aware Antonoff has had an impact on her life professionally-speaking, too, she revealed during her tribute to him at the Variety Hitmakers event that he's fully served as a guide to her in the music industry.
"Jack, you're such a big reason for why I'm friends with so many people I know in this room," she explained. "I knew nobody when I started. That's why the first time I was ever nominated for any Grammy, I just didn't go. I didn't know how to do it. I really didn't I didn't know a person."
The "Tough" singer went on to share the story of meeting Antonoff in 2018 and the beginnings of their working relationship.
"He brought me to a diner and he was like, 'If you just come to my home studio, I think we could write something really amazing'—and I was not convinced.," she admitted. "He is the most persistent, convincing person. I needed that. There are things, there are so many things I would not have done if he hadn't made me."
Del Rey credited collaborating with Antonoff with taking her career to the place it is now and helping her rediscover her own love of making music.
"Jack is a big reason why part of my story and the perception of me turned around. If it did at all, it is in part because of the music that he helped bring out in me," she said. "I love to sing. I love to write. It kind of diminished a little bit over those 10 years before I met him."
Next up, let's find an "All-Around Muse of the Decade" award to nominate Antonoff for, because it sounds like he should at least be in the running.
