TURNS OUT LOVE ISN’T LIT
ARIANA GRANDE AND PETE DAVIDSON PART WAYS
Like the leaves of a maple tree, the summer fling between Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson fell casualty to the autumn.
It’s been a tough couple of years for Grande.
In May 2017, the Manchester bombing that killed 22 occurred at her concert. The following May, she and boyfriend of two years, Mac Miller, broke up. Shortly after that, the singer confirmed a new relationship, with Saturday Night Live’s Davidson. The pair announced their quickie engagement mere weeks after that.
It was a whirlwind romance, filled with matching tattoos, Harry Potter euphemisms and nauseating public declarations of love. The most notable of which infamously occurred when Grande took to Twitter to declare, “Love is lit. S--t happens. I hope to god it happens to you too.”
Later this summer, she revealed she’d been suffering from PTSD after Manchester in an interview with British Vogue. Then, in August, Grande released her latest album, Sweetener, which quickly shot to No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and elicited a lengthy promo tour for the singer.
On Sept. 7, however, news broke that Miller had been found dead in his Los Angeles home after an alleged drug overdose. Grande’s social media was immediately inundated with trolls blaming her for their breakup and his ensuing death. The singer cancelled her appearances that week, most notably pulling out of SNL and the Emmy Awards. She finally addressed his death on Sept. 14 with an old Instagram video of him, saying, “I can’t believe you aren’t here anymore. I really can’t wrap my head around it. We talked about this. So many times. I’m so mad, I’m so sad, I don’t know what to do.”
All the while, Davidson engaged on something of a promo tour for himself, including an August interview with GQ in which the SNL cast member said, “GQ wouldn’t hit me up if I didn’t recently get engaged to a superfamous person.” No lies detected.
Davidson’s ill-advised comments to the press continued through much of the summer, with him admitting he essentially proposed to Grande on a dare, that he used to masturbate to her before actually meeting her, that he was “proud” Bill Clinton appeared to be “eyeing” his fiancée at Aretha Franklin’s funeral, that he “felt bad” for Bishop Charles H. Ellis III when he was accused of groping her after her performance, and that she paid for their $16-million Manhattan apartment and stocked it.
The worst Davidson blurt may have been when he appeared on the The Howard Stern Show to admit that he thinks of his father, who died on 9/11, during sex: “Any time we’re intimate, I’m always apologizing and saying thank you. I swear to god. I’m like, you’re awesome for doing this, thank you so much. I was just thinking of my dad being burned alive. That’s what I do. I just think of my dad seeing that fire coming right towards me.”
Davidson was blasted on social media, with Grande fans labelling him “disgusting.”
Grande recently announced she would not be going on tour for her album, before a latenight tweetstorm implied she was depressed: “Can I pls have one okay day. just one. pls . ... i’m so tired pls.” After fans expressed their concern, she tweeted her thank you to them, adding, “It’s been a tough month. I’m trying to get my work done and get back to normal and it’s hard and I’m human and tired.”
Her team also released the following statement at the time: “Given the events of the past couple of years, Ariana is going to take some much needed time to heal and mend. She will be staying close to home and using this period to spend time with her loved ones and work on new music without deadline. She thanks her fans for their understanding.”
All of which is to say that when the news broke via TMZ on Sunday evening that the pair had called it quits, with a source suggesting their relationship had been “way too much too soon,” it wasn’t exactly a surprise.
And so, another one bites the dust. Possibly, for the best this time.