Lana Del Rey Ties Knot With Alligator Tour Guide Jeremy Dufrene at Louisiana Bayou

Lana Del Rey attends The Drop: Lana Del Rey at the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles, Calif., on Oct. 13, 2019. Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Grammy-nominated singer Lana Del Rey married alligator tour guide Jeremy Dufrene during an intimate ceremony held at a public Louisiana bayou on Sept. 26.

Pictures captured by the Daily Mail show the “Summertime Sadness” star hand-in-hand with Dufrene as they walk along a Des Allemands path near Airboat Tours by Arthur, a company where Dufrene leads wildlife tours through the swamps. Del Rey wore a vintage-style white dress while Dufrene donned a classic dark suit.

New Orleans news outlet nola.com reported that Del Rey and Dufrene filed for a marriage license on Sept. 23 in Lafourche Parish, located an hour’s drive southwest of the New Orleans metro. The license was $32 and granted a 30-day window for the couple to wed in the state of Louisiana.

The wedding marks Del Rey’s first marriage, and Dufrene’s second, as the tour guide was previously married to his first wife Gina, according to the Daily Mail. In 2012, Dufrene proposed to ex-fiancée Kelli Welsh, but the couple separated over a decade later in October 2023.

“I am in shock because we were engaged for 12 years, and he got married after one month,” Welsh told the Daily Mail. “But I am happy for him.”

Welsh and Dufrene began dating as teenagers before splitting a year into their relationship. The two reconnected in 2011, and the Louisiana native proposed a year later. Welsh praised Dufrene’s character and personality, calling his marriage with Del Rey a “blessing.”

“He is a very protective, hardworking, manly man. He needed to get out of his comfort zone. He was used to bayou life and being out on the swamp. He is deserving of this blessing,” she said. “He has always been a giver so to have someone give to him, he deserves it. He is a very solid guy.”

“I will say that he really does look happy with her,” she noted about the newlyweds’ relationship. “And she does with him which is a good thing to see. It’s not a fake happy—he truly is in love with her.”

Born as Elizabeth Woolridge Grant on June 21, 1985, Lana Del Rey was raised in upstate New York. After high school, she began singing in clubs in Brooklyn, but she had no plan of turning her talent into a career.

“I was always singing, but didn’t plan on pursuing it seriously,” she told Vogue in 2011. “When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn—I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point—and that was it.”

In 2008, the singer-songwriter released a three-track EP titled “Kill Kill.” The songs would later be included in her first album, 2010’s “Lana Del Ray AKA Lizzy Grant.” In 2011, Del Rey had a breakthrough after uploading self-made music videos for her songs “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans” to YouTube, the former becoming a viral sensation.

To this date, Del Rey has earned 11 Grammy nominations and a Golden Globe nomination. She is best known for hits such as 2012’s “Summertime Sadness,” 2013’s  “Young and Beautiful,” which was featured in the film “The Great Gatsby” from the same year, and 2014’s “West Coast.”

Before he set sail as a tour guide captain, Dufrene worked at a chemical plant and fished for shrimp on his days off. He later obtained his captain’s license and started running tours.

Del Rey met Dufrene in 2019, when the “Video Games” star performed at the BUKU Music + Art Project in Louisiana, according to the Daily Mail. Del Rey went on one of Dufrene’s wildlife tours and shared photos on social media from her experience with her future spouse, although both of them were in separate relationships at the time.

“Jeremy lemme be captain at Arthur’s AirBoat Tours,” she captioned the photos on Facebook.