Lana Del Rey‘s ex-fiance Clayton Johnson shared his bittersweet feelings about her marriage to gator tour guide Jeremy Dufrene.
The country music star, 37, said it ‘stings’ that the Young and Beautiful hitmaker, 40, moved on a few years after the end of their engagement.
Johnson – who was a contestant on Taylor Frankie Paul’s since-canceled season of The Bachelorette – appeared on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast on Wednesday, where he talked about Del Rey’s marriage to Dufrene, 51.
‘Obviously, she’s married now. And I think that when you love somebody, and it comes from a pure place, and she’s somebody that I loved and I love, for her to find her person and for her to be as happy as she is, like she is glowing, nothing could make me happier for her,’ he told hosts Charity Lawson and Rachel Recchia.
The Nashville-based songwriter added, ‘It might sting a little bit, to be honest with you, but if you really love somebody in the purest form, how could you be upset at that?’
Johnson and Del Rey were reported to be engaged in December 2020, but later split, with the singer going on to marry Dufrene in 2024.
Lana Del Rey’s, 40, ex-fiance Clayton Johnson, 37, shared his bittersweet feelings about her marriage to gator tour guide Jeremy Dufrene, 51
The country music star said it ‘stings’ that the Young and Beautiful hitmaker moved on a few years after the end of their engagement; Del Rey and Dufrene seen in January
Johnson went on to say that he has ‘respect’ and ‘nothing but amazing things to say’ about Del Rey.
The musician didn’t want to share ‘any crazy details’ about their relationship because Del Rey is ‘a pretty private person.’
However, he revealed that they ‘met in passing at church’ before reconnecting during COVID.
‘I was traveling back and forth to Nashville at the time between LA, and we just really connected over what we wanted our futures to look like, old country music, and, yeah, what our futures look like to us,’ he said.
‘It was really easy to connect. We had a month of just FaceTiming, and I feel like we really became best friends over that time. So when you have that together and then you’re together in person, we were pretty inseparable when that happened.’
As for their engagement, he said it happened quickly because the pandemic ‘accelerated things a little bit.’
‘I think COVID was a lot like dog years, you know, one month in COVID time is really like one year in the real world.’
‘But at the same time, it just felt so right in all the ways,’ he added.
He said that after their split they continued to have a working relationship for a while and were ‘still kind of maybe testing the waters.’
Despite that, he added that ‘If you really love somebody in the purest form, how could you be upset at that?’ while appearing on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast on Wednesday
Johnson and Del Rey (seen in an Instagram snap) were reported to be engaged in December 2020, but later split, with the singer going on to marry Dufrene in 2024
Del Rey and Dufrene first met in 2019 during one of Dufrene’s swamp excursions and reconnected years later, before tying the knot in September 2024; Seen with Dufrene in 2025
They reunited a few times before calling it off for good. Johnson said their relationship will always be a ‘huge’ and ‘really impactful’ part of his life.
He also explained that taking part in The Bachelorette was not done to ‘spite’ his ex, though he added she is a fan of reality TV and The Bachelor.
‘I truly don’t have any place in my heart for any sort of revenge, any hate. It did not come from a place of wanting to get back at her by any means. This was for me and this was for my journey. So had nothing to do with that whatsoever.’
Paul, who first found fame as a TikTok influencer before starring on Hulu’s record-breaking reality series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, was set to front the next season of the long-running dating competition.
But her season of The Bachelorette was ultimately shelved after a video resurfaced showing a 2023 domestic violence incident involving her and her ex, Dakota Mortensen.
Johnson’s inclusion on The Bachelorette was awkward given that Del Rey is a self-professed superfan of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
In fact, the songstress even appeared on season three of the Hulu series, where she filmed with some of the cast members after her performance at the Stagecoach music festival.
Del Rey is also a huge fan of The Bachelor franchise and in a 2022 interview she named it as her favorite TV show.
Before their split, Johnson briefly collaborated with Del Rey on one of the songs from her Blue Bannisters album.
Elsewhere on the podcast, Johnson – who was a contestant on Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette – added that taking part in the show was not done to ‘spite’ his ex
Paul’s season of The Bachelorette was ultimately shelved after a video resurfaced showing a 2023 domestic violence incident involving her and her ex, Dakota Mortensen
Johnson, who is based in Nashville, got his start in the industry as a model before launching his own music career as a country singer and guitarist.
Although he only boasts 50,000 monthly listeners on Spotify compared to Del Rey’s 66 million, Johnson has managed to work consistently as a musician and has performed with the likes of Sabrina Carpenter and Scotty McCreery.
Last year, he released his first EP titled Live to Learn.
Meanwhile, Del Rey and Dufrene first met in 2019 during one of Dufrene’s swamp excursions and reconnected years later. In 2024, Del Rey and the divorced father-of-three tied the knot in a Louisiana wedding.
Dufrene and Del Rey live in a $273,000 five-room house in Des Allemands that he built from the ground up in 2021.
The home is featured in Del Rey’s new music video White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter, which is about her relationship with Dufrene.
