Ariana Grande revealed why she added five deeply personal songs to her new album at the last minute
“No Tears Left To Cry” singer Ariana Grande appears on the cover of The FADER’s June 2018 issue. In her cover interview, Grande discusses her life a year after the May 2017 Manchester arena bombing, and how that event, alongside other personal experiences, contributed to her upcoming album Sweetener. In the same vein, Grande also opened up about her last-minute decision to add five deeply personal songs to the tail end of the album.
Grande told FADER that these five songs were initially excluded from the album because she feared that her fans would worry about her. She thought they were “too emotionally honest.” But after hitting an “emotional rock bottom,” Grande decided to give these five tracks a second look.
"There are parts of my life that they would love to know about, and hard times that I have been dealing with for the past year-and-a-half that [fans] deserve to know about because they love me endlessly and care," she told FADER in a follow-up phone interview a few weeks after her cover shoot. "I don't want to hide any pain from them because I can relate to their pain. Why not be in it together?"
"I guess I was kind of running on zero and pretending to be at a 10 for about 10 months," she said. "It took me getting to, I deserve to be at a 10, and f-ck it, and let's f-cking go, and now I feel so free and happy as f-ck."
Although she didn’t divulge what made her reach such a low point — be it the aftermath of Manchester, her breakup with Mac Miller, the current political climate, or other personal issues — we’ll likely get our answers come the summer release Sweetener.
“I’ve never been this vulnerable to myself,” Grande concluded. “I feel like I graduated almost. I feel like for a long time the songs were great, but they weren’t songs that made me feel something the way these songs do.”
We can’t wait to dive into Sweetener and feel Grande’s emotions alongside her. Sweetener is rumored to arrive in late July so keep your eyes peeled and your ears open.
