Ariana Grande has been busy. The pop star’s new album, Eternal Sunshine, is set to drop in March, and the first installment of the musical Wicked, in which Grande plays Glinda, hits theaters in November.
But in a new interview with Zach Sang that dropped on YouTube on Monday evening, the pop star also seemingly alluded to the gossip that’s tracked her amidst both her divorce from ex-husband Dalton Gomez, which was first revealed last September, and new romance with Wicked costar Ethan Slater, which has come with a firestorm of controversy.
“I feel like you’re talking to people who feel like they know you, but don’t,” Sang told Grande. “There is a sense of misunderstanding. People have crafted their own narratives.”
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“The thing is that like, we know this about the tabloids and the media,” Grande said. “Like, am I crazy? Don’t we know this?”
“Yeah but nobody cares, for the sake of a good story,” Sang said.
“Right, but that’s what I’m saying,” Grande replied. “We selectively remember that this is what the tabloids do to people, especially women, based on whether or not we like the person. We selectively leave space for humanness, for nuance.”
“But again, I don’t say this for them,” Grande said. “I’m saying this for my fans, for myself.”
Last summer, shortly after the news first broke that Grande had split (but not yet divorced) from Gomez, reports came that she was dating Slater, who himself had reportedly separated from his wife. Slater also has a young son with his ex, who at the time was less than a year old.
Lilly Jay, Slater’s ex, told Page Six contemporaneously that Grande, who reportedly spent time with Jay and Slater when they were together, is “not a girl’s girl. My family is just collateral damage... the story is her and Dalton.”
“I am focused on rebuilding a life for our son and rebuilding a life for him,” Jay also told The Daily Mail. “This is what I am trying to do and this is my only focus.”
“Is there anything you wish people knew?” Sang asked Grande this week. “About what?” Grande replied. “Any of it, all of it, you,” Sang said.
“Plenty,” Grande said, setting down the glass she’d just sipped from and joking that there wasn’t “enough time” to get into everything. “Of course, there is an insatiable frustration, inexplicable, hellish feeling in watching people misunderstand the people you love—and you,” she added.
