Ariana Grande’s new album sweetener is her comeback after the horrific Manchester attack that she was a victim of in May 2017.
After the violent act of terrorism took the lives of 22 people, Ariana closed herself off from the world for quite a long time. We know now that she was in therapy, and was working on her new album… but she has never really spoken much about how it affected her.
Now that she is back and promoting her album, she has completely opened up talking to Ebro Darden from Beats 1 radio.
After listening to her track “Get Well Soon,” Ebro asks why she got so emotional listening to it.
“It’s just about just being there for each and helping each other through scary times and anxiety,” Ari said through tears. “There’s some dark sh*t out there, man, and we just have to be there for each other as much as we can because you never f*cking know. I just wanted to do something to make people feel good and less alone. it’s not just about that; it’s also about personal demons and anxiety and more intimate tragedies, as well. Mental health is so important.”
She continued, “Obviously you see this sh*t on the news it affects you, but not in the same way. You feel bad, you tweet it, you post a picture, you send your condolences, you say something and then you move on. But Christmas comes and you’re thinking about it and it’s like… It’s like people are permanently affected by this sh*t and it’s just like, perspective. It changes everything, changes your life quite a bit. You really want to be more present and follow happy impulses and figure it out later and wanna stay in the moment.”
“You try not to give into fear because obviously that’s the whole point of being here. That was the point of finishing my tour, was to set an example for my fans who were fearless enough to show up to the f*cking shows. Like, are you kidding? You want to se the same example and you want to keep going and you want to just not be afraid because of course that’s what they want. If you give them that they’ve won. We did everything to not and we still do everything to not. But the truth is, it’s f*cking scary.”
It’s extremely har to watch Ariana break down like this, and she keeps apologising for it because clearly she didn’t expect to come into that interview and be so overwhelmed with emotion.
“I feel like the lyrics can be kind of corny when I talk about wanting to hug you, but I do,” she concluded. “People gotta be nicer.”
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