Emma Roberts Explains Her Odd Lana Del Rey Video That Became a Meme

Emma Roberts may be well-known for her various roles in American Horror Story and as Chanel Oberlin on Scream Queens, but in 2021, all the buzz was about her odd Lana Del Rey video. Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night nearly three years after the unusual clip went viral and instantly became a meme, the actress, 33, gave some insight into the hilarious clip.

Shared to Instagram in July 2021, the video showed Roberts in a green dress on the beach, laughing and posing for the camera while Del Rey’s “Happiness is a Butterfly” from her 2019 album Norman F-cking Rockwell! played. The unusual seconds-long clip immediately went viral, sparking a flurry of hilarious comments and memes. Asked about the video by Fallon, Roberts, who can currently be seen opposite Kim Kardashian and Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story: Delicate, credited advice from her younger sister for inspiring the video.

“Well basically, my sister is 10 years younger than me. So she’s in her early 20s, you know, living the dream, knows how to work social media, unlike me, a 33-year-old millennial,” Roberts explained. “So she was like, ‘You’re not posting enough videos.’ And I took it so personal. I was like, ‘What do you mean I’m not posting enough videos? I post all the time.’ She’s like, ‘No, you need video content, not photos. And use the songs.’ I’m like, ‘Songs? You can put songs on videos?’”

Roberts said she “freaked out” and quickly went to work on creating what she hoped to be the first of many videos. Noting that she “had glam,” she said she “did this video. I made this stupid face. And put a Lana Del Ray song on it, because I love her, and it was the first thing that popped up.” After uploading the video to Instagram, the actress “went to bed, woke up, and the internet had it’s way with me.”

Memes of the video ranged from “me pretending to be engaged in what my friend is saying but really I’m just trying to look candid for the hot guy near us who isn’t paying attention to me” to “catherine of aragon and anne boleyn when henry viii asked if the children they’d produced were sons.” Responding to the reaction to the video a few days later, Roberts returned to Instagram to share a snippet of the video to her Instagram Stories, writing, “Me going viral after 30. Thank you gays and whoever else.”

While the reaction to the video wasn’t exactly what Roberts was expecting, she still gave plenty of credit to her sister. During her Wednesday appearance on the Tonight Show, she said, “I will say, my sister was right! I needed more videos…I went viral listening to her advice. Thanks, Grace.”