Benson Boone still gets excited telling the story of how he got to perform his hit “Beautiful Things” with Lana Del Rey. During an interview at the Grammy Museum Thursday night, Boone recounted getting a call from the “Born To Die” singer, inviting him to join her for a duet at Hangout Fest in Alabama in May.
“I’m sitting here on the plane and it’s about to take off and I get a call. I obviously have no idea who it is,” he recounted. “I usually just answer the phone … I’m down to just have a little convo with Don from State Farm and talk about the insurance that I definitely already have.”
“I answered the phone and I was like, ‘Hey, it’s Roger, who’s this?’ It’s not Roger, it was me. And she’s like, ‘Hey, this is Lana’ … I was like, Lana, do I know you? Lana who? And she’s like, ‘Oh, Lana Del Rey,’” Boone added, re-enacting his hilarious reaction when he realized who was on the phone. “It was the most insane thing. I literally didn’t even hear the next thing she said. I’m sure she talked for a while but I didn’t hear any of it. I was like freaking out.”
On the call, Del Rey invited Boone to join her onstage during the fest in Gulf Shores, Alabama. He called over his manager, made sure their schedule was cleared, and agreed to do it. “It was the craziest thing ever,” he said, adding that he even sent her a picture of his outfit before the show. “I had so much fun.”
Boone explained that the pair got to soundcheck the song onstage at 11 p.m. the night before their performance. “There was storm and lightning everywhere. She was like, ‘I’m so nervous,’” he continued. “I didn’t tell her I was nervous. I played it really cool. ‘It’s OK, we’re going to be fine.’ Inside, I was like ‘Ah!’”
“I went back to the hotel and I had a great night — I didn’t sleep at all,” he continued. “I woke up the next day. Well, I didn’t wake up. I just got myself out of bed the next day, and then went over and we did the festival and it was so cool. She’s so nice. She’s so cool.”
Boone was one of the several guests — including Jelly Roll, Nessa Barrett, and Tommy Genesis — who joined Del Rey onstage at Hangout Fest in mid-May. Onstage at the event, Boone did his signature backflips after their performance, to which Del Rey hilariously joked, “Fucking Benson! I don’t have fucking insurance on that bullshit! Thank you, Benson.”
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The new interview with Boone comes after Luminate revealed that “Beautiful Things” is the biggest song of the year through the first half of 2024, with 1.43 billion streams worldwide. In the U.S. alone, “Beautiful Things” remains Number One with 448 million streams across all major platforms.
On Friday, Boone released his song “Death Wise Love” from the Twisters soundtrack, which follows his album Firework and Rollerblades, which dropped in April.
