OK! ICONS ARIANA GRANDE
WITH ANOTHER HIT ALBUM UNDER HER BELT THE SUPERSTAR PREPARES TO TAKE ON THE WORLD
From tween actress to one of the most successful women in music, Ariana Grande has ticked off a lot of life goals for a 25 year old. In her career so far, she’s won more than 70 awards, performed at the White House and collaborated with everyone from Pharrell Williams to Andrea Bocelli – oh, and she does incredible impressions of other singers, such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Celine Dion. No wonder she’s the most followed woman on Instagram!
It’s set to be another busy year for the softly spoken superstar. In February, Ariana’s latest album Thank U, Next debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 – the first time a woman’s done so since Adele in 2015. And now, fresh from bagging a Grammy and a Brit for her fourth album Sweetener, she’s swishing her ponytail on a world tour, which began in March. She’ll be hitting stages across the UK this summer, plus she’ll headline the Manchester Pride festival in August.
Ariana was born on June 26, 1993 in Florida to Joan Grande, a CEO of a communication company, and Edward Butera, a graphic designer. As a little girl, she was obsessed with Halloween and admits: ‘There was a stage, when I was three or four, where my mom thought I might grow up to be a serial killer.
I always wanted to be wearing a Freddy Krueger mask and I would carry a hockey stick around. For my fifth birthday party we had a Jaws theme and all my friends left crying.’
When she wasn’t terrifying her friends, a young Ariana enjoyed taking part in school plays and joined Fort Lauderdale Children’s Theatre, where she played her first role as the lead in Annie. Around the same time, her parents divorced and performing became a refuge. She says: ‘I was like “Take me away from home.” I loved playing a character as it was sort of just taking a vacation from myself.’
While things were difficult at home, Ariana’s love of the stage grew as she watched her older stepbrother Frankie, now a seasoned Broadway performer, take his first steps into showbiz. ‘I worshipped my brother. He’s ten years older than me, but once he got into acting in musical theatre and dancing, I was like: “OK, I guess that’s the cool thing now.” My friends and I were huge musical-theatre geeks and we would go back and forth to New York whenever we had free weekends.’
The siblings’ bond became even stronger when Frankie came out as gay when Ariana was 11, causing her to question her faith. ‘When my brother was told that God didn’t love him I was like: “OK, that’s not cool,”’ she recalls. The
pair turned to the Kabbalah movement, which she now credits with keeping her grounded.
Ariana followed in Frankie’s footsteps, winning a role in Broadway children’s musical when she was 13 before landing her big TV break at 15 in Nickelodeon’s Victorious followed by the short-lived spin-off Cat & Sam. The young star didn’t take to fame easily, though. ‘I was adjusting to these new things – red carpets, and people wanting pictures with me, and people taking pictures of me when I didn’t know they were being taken.’
Ariana’s true passion lay in music and after uploading covers of her singing Adele, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey songs to Youtube, she was signed by Republic Records in 2011, aged
17. When her debut album Yours Truly hit in
2013, critics likened her vocals to Mariah Carey’s. With three albums under her belt and with a world tour underway, life was good when on May 22,
2017, tragedy struck. After performing at the Manchester Arena, a bomb was detonated in a suicide attack outside the venue, killing 22. Two weeks later, the singer put on the One Love benefit concert and her compassion for the victims, as well as her openness about her anxiety following the attack, won her even more fans on this side of the pond.
With such an international fanbase, Ariana’s personal life is constantly in the headlines. She became a poster girl for veganism after telling fans she had gone 100% plant-based in 2013, but it’s her love life that’s the most scrutinised aspect of her life. Ariana’s high-profile boyfriends include Nathan Sykes of The Wanted, hip-hop artist Big Sean, rapper Mac Miller, who sadly died last year, and most recently SNL actor Peter Davidson, to whom she was briefly engaged.
However, the star doesn’t want to be defined by the men in her life and is well known for standing up against sexism, once shutting down a radio host after he asked her if she would choose her phone or make-up, replying: ‘Is this what you think girls have trouble choosing between? Is this men assuming that’s what girls would have to choose between?’
It’s this fierce refusal to bow down to stereotypes – as well her octave range – that makes Ariana one of the most important voices in pop today. As she says herself: ‘I come from a strong, loud Italian family. We don’t take s**t from anybody.’
‘I come from a strong, loud Italian family we don’t take s**t.’