‘Mac, I hope you’re happy now’
Music world grieves rapper Mac Miller, 26.
The music world is grieving rapper Mac Miller, who died Friday at age 26.
The former boyfriend of Ariana Grande had reportedly struggled with substance abuse. Late Friday morning, he was found unresponsive in his home, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner confirmed to USA TODAY. An autopsy is pending and a cause of death hasn’t been determined.
Ariana Grande remembered her ex on Saturday without saying a word. The singer posted a stark black-and-white image on Instagram of Miller gazing up at her. There was no caption, and the comments were disabled.
Also on Saturday, Elton John dedicated his performance of “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” to the late musician at the first show of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
“It’s inconceivable that someone so young, and with so much talent, could (go like) that,” John told the crowd. “Mac, wherever you are, I hope you’re happy now.”
Musicians and fans were stunned by the news of his death, which came just weeks before he was set to kick off a U.S. tour to promote his new album “Swimming,” which made its debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart.
“I just wanna go on tour,” he tweeted Thursday. “The show is going to be special every night. I wish it started tomorrow.”
Miller, born Malcolm James McCormick and raised in Pittsburgh, released his first mixtape “But My Mackin’ Ain’t Easy” at age 15 in 2007. At that time, he went by the moniker Easy Mac. He signed to Rostrum Records in 2010, eventually splitting from the label in 2014. He rose to fame with his mixtape “Best Day Ever” in 2011, landing on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the single “Donald Trump.”
Miller was then featured on Grande’s breakout 2013 track “The Way,” beginning a successful working relationship. The two took things to the next level and started a romantic relationship in 2016, with Grande appearing on Miller’s “The Divine Feminine” single “My Favorite Part” in the same year.
Grande spoke about their “toxic” two-year relationship, which ended in May, in a response to a Twitter user who criticized her for breaking up with him.
“Mac Miller totaling his G wagon and getting a DUI after Ariana Grande dumped him for another dude after he poured his heart out on a ten song album to her called the divine feminine is just the most heartbreaking thing happening in Hollywood,” the user said.
“I have cared for him and tried to support his sobriety & prayed for his balance for years (and always will of course) but shaming / blaming women for a man’s inability to keep his (expletive) together is a very major problem. let’s please stop doing that,” she wrote.
Miller was open about his ups and downs with drug addition and often addressed it in interviews and song lyrics.
In a 2015 interview with Billboard, Miller spoke about the drug habits that took hold after his debut in 2010. “I was doing a lot of drugs around that time, which is another difference now: I’m not doing as many drugs. It just eats at your mind, doing drugs every single day, every second. It’s rough on your body.”
“I’ve got to make sure I make all this music so when I die there’s albums and albums,” Miller said in the same interview.
He also rapped about his struggles with addiction on his 2014 mixtape “Faces,” speaking about that time in his life to Vulture in an interview published Thursday.