Ariana Grande Taking Break After Tour Amid “Public Scrutiny” Over Health

Indeed, Grande has addressed body-shamers in the past.

“I’ve been doing this in front of the public, and kind of been a specimen in a petri-dish since I was 16 or 17,”  she shared during a December 2024 interview with the web series Oui Oui Baguette. “So I have heard it all. I’ve heard every version of it, of what’s wrong with me. And then you fix it, and then it’s wrong for different reasons.”

“It’s hard to protect yourself from that noise,” she continued at the time, “and I think it’s something that is uncomfortable no matter what scale you’re experiencing it on.”

While Grande’s new music centers on her relationship with the public, petal is not about her love life, the insider told E! News, saying, “This album is not about any romantic partner or breakup in that way.”

Yet, Grande—who recently rekindled her romance with Ricky Alvarez following her breakup with Ethan Slater earlier this year—emphasized that she channeled another side of herself while writing the album.

“It pulls from many different parts of myself and yet, at the same time, it is very experimental and different for me,” she said in an Apple Music clip posted on July 29. “I wrote from a place that I don’t usually, which was like an unfiltered rage that I think we all feel sometimes.”

For a closer look at how Grande has evolved throughout her career, read on…