Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande-Butera (/ˌɑːriˈɑːnə ˈɡrɑːndeɪ bjʊˈtɛərə/ AR-ee-AH-nə GRAHN-day byuu-TAIR-ə; born June 26, 1993) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress.
Regarded as a pop icon and an influential figure in popular music, she is noted for her four-octave vocal range and her signature use of the whistle register.
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Ariana Grande
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 Grande performing on the Dangerous Woman Tour in 2017 |
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| Born |
Ariana Grande-Butera
June 26, 1993 Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.
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| Occupations |
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| Years active | 2008–present |
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| Spouse |
Dalton Gomez
(m. 2021; div. 2024) |
| Relatives | Frankie Grande (half-brother) |
| Musical career | |
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| Instruments | Vocals |
| Labels | Republic |
| Website | arianagrande |
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Grande’s various awards include two Grammy Awards, one Brit Award, two Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, nine MTV Video Music Awards, and 36 Guinness World Records.
Rolling Stone named her one of the greatest vocalists of all time.
Grande began her career at age 15 by appearing in the Broadway musical 13 (2008).
She rose to prominence for her performance as Cat Valentine in the Nickelodeon television series Victorious (2010–2013) and its spin-off series Sam & Cat (2013–2014). She signed with Republic Records in 2011.
Grande’s debut studio album, Yours Truly (2013), incorporated retro-pop and R&B elements and yielded the successful single “The Way”.
My Everything (2014), her second album, experimented with EDM and catapulted her to worldwide stardom through the singles “Problem”, “Break Free”, and “Bang Bang”.
Grande further explored pop and R&B with her third album Dangerous Woman (2016), which solidified her critical and commercial success.
Personal struggles influenced Grande’s trap-infused fourth and fifth albums, Sweetener (2018) and Thank U, Next (2019).
The former won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album, while the latter broke several streaming records and was nominated for Album of the Year.
Thank U, Next garnered two Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs with its title track and “7 Rings”, and made Grande the first solo artist to simultaneously occupy the top three positions on the chart.
She broke the record for the most number-one debuts in Hot 100 history with the title track of her trap-influenced sixth album,
Positions (2020), and the collaborations “Stuck with U” with Justin Bieber and “Rain on Me” with Lady Gaga, the latter of which won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
Grande ventured into dance music on her seventh album, Eternal Sunshine (2024), which produced the number-one singles “Yes, And?” and “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)”.
She returned to acting with the political satire Don’t Look Up (2021).
Among the world’s best-selling music artists, Grande has sold over 85 million records worldwide.
Having amassed 98 billion streams thus far, Grande is one of the most-streamed artists of all time and the most-streamed female artist, as of 2021.
She was the most-streamed female act of the 2010s and has the second most songs with over a billion streams for a woman, with 14 on Spotify.
Grande also has a large social media following; with over 380 million followers, she is the sixth-most-followed individual on Instagram and one of the most-subscribed and most followed musicians on YouTube and Spotify.
She was named Woman of the Year (2018) and the most successful female artist to debut in the 2010s by Billboard, featured in listicles such as Time 100 (2016 and 2019), Forbes Celebrity 100 (2019–2020), and ranked the highest-paid female musician of 2020 by Forbes.
Outside of music and film, Grande has worked with many charitable organizations and advocates for animal rights, mental health, and gender, racial, and LGBT equality.
Her business ventures include R.E.M. Beauty, a cosmetics brand launched in 2021, and a fragrance line that has earned over $1 billion in global retail sales.
Early life
Ariana Grande-Butera was born on June 26, 1993, in Boca Raton, Florida.
She is the daughter of Joan Grande, the Brooklyn-born CEO of Hose-McCann Communications, a manufacturer of marine communications equipment owned by the Grande family since 1964, and Edward Butera, a graphic design firm owner in Boca Raton.
Grande is of Italian descent and has described herself as an Italian American with Sicilian and Abruzzese roots.
She has an older half-brother, Frankie Grande, who is an entertainer and producer.
Her family moved from New York to Florida before her birth, and her parents separated when she was eight or nine years old. Grande has a close relationship with her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Grande.
At age 8, she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Florida Panthers’ home game against the Chicago Blackhawks on January 16, 2002.
As a young child, Grande performed with the Fort Lauderdale Children’s Theater, playing her first role as the title character in the musical Annie.
She also performed in their productions of The Wizard of Oz and Beauty and the Beast.
At age eight, she performed at a karaoke lounge on a cruise ship and with various orchestras such as South Florida’s Philharmonic, Florida Sunshine Pops and Symphonic Orchestras.
During this time, she attended the Pine Crest School and later North Broward Preparatory.
Personal life
Grande has said she struggled with hypoglycemia, which she attributed to poor dietary habits. She has been a vegan since 2013.
Fans questioned in 2019 whether she was still a vegan after working with Starbucks to create a special edition of one of her favorite drinks which was revealed to contain eggs.
Her nutritionist, Harley Pasternak, told the magazine Glamour that Grande is vegan but that he has got her to “feel OK about indulging and celebrating sometimes”.
Grande developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety after the Manchester Arena bombing; she nearly pulled out of her performance in the 2018 broadcast A Very Wicked Halloween due to anxiety.
Grande has also said she has been in therapy for over a decade, having first seen a mental health professional shortly after her parents’ divorce.
Grande was raised Roman Catholic, but left the church during the pontificate of Benedict XVI (circa 2013), opposing its stance on homosexuality and noting that her half-brother Frankie is gay.
Grande stated that she and Frankie later visited a Kabbalah Centre and that they both “really had a connection with it.”
Several of her songs, such as “Break Your Heart Right Back”, are supportive of LGBT rights. She has also been labeled “an advocate for a sex-positive attitude”.
In November 2019, Grande endorsed Bernie Sanders’ second presidential bid. She endorsed Joe Biden for the 2020 presidential election.
Relationships
Grande met actor Graham Phillips in the cast of the Broadway musical 13 in 2008 and dated him until 2011.
Grande was later involved in an on-again, off-again relationship with Australian YouTuber Jai Brooks from August 2012 to July 2013; the two resumed their relationship from May to August 2014.
She dated English singer Nathan Sykes between August and December 2013, and then dated rapper Big Sean from October 2014 to April 2015.
After recording “The Way” with rapper Mac Miller in 2012, the two began dating in 2016.
Grande was featured on Miller’s single “My Favorite Part” from his album The Divine Feminine (2016); she also provided an uncredited introduction to the album and was the inspiration behind its fifth track, “Cinderella”.
By May 2018, their relationship had ended and Grande entered a whirlwind romance with comedian Pete Davidson.
They got engaged in June, after a few weeks of dating, while a song titled after and inspired by Davidson was featured on Grande’s album Sweetener (2018).
That September, Miller died from an accidental drug overdose; Grande expressed grief over his death on social media and called him her “dearest friend”.
She and Davidson called off their engagement and ended their relationship the following month.
Grande began dating real estate agent Dalton Gomez in January 2020. Their relationship, while mostly private, was made public in May 2020, in the music video of her and Justin Bieber’s charity single “Stuck with U”.
Grande announced their engagement on December 20, 2020, after 11 months of dating. On May 15, 2021, they married in a private ceremony at her home in Montecito, California.
Her wedding pictures became among the most-liked Instagram posts, with over 25 million likes. The couple separated on February 20, 2023, and simultaneously filed for divorce in Septemaber, citing “irreconcilable differences”.
Grande and Gomez agreed on a divorce settlement in October 2023, which was finalized in March 2024.
Because the couple had a prenuptial agreement, no children, and no significant legal disputes in their split, their divorce moved quickly and cleanly in the court system and only had to wait the required six months before a judge’s order could take effect.
Under their settlement, Grande was ordered to make a one-time payment of $1.25 million to Gomez with no future alimony, give him half of the proceeds of the sale of their Los Angeles home, and pay up to $25,000 towards his attorney’s fees.
Artistry
Musical style
Grande’s music is generally pop and R&B with elements of EDM, hip hop, and trap, the latter first appearing prominently on her Christmas & Chill extended play.
While consistently maintaining pop and R&B tones, she has increasingly incorporated trap into her music as her career has progressed, thanks to her work with record producer Tommy Brown.
She has collaborated with Brown on every album thus far and stated that “one of the things I love most about working with Tommy is that none of the beats he plays me ever sound the same.”
Grande learned how to sound engineer and produce her own vocals because she “love[s] being hands on” with every project, revealing that rapper Mac Miller first taught her how to use the digital audio workstation Pro Tools.
Collaborator Justin Tranter remarked that he felt inspired seeing how involved Grande is in creating her music “from the writing to the vision to the storytelling and to even engineering and comping her own vocals.”
She has co-written songs addressing a wide variety of themes, such as love, sex, wealth, breakups, independence, empowerment, self-love and moving on from the past.
Grande’s debut album “Yours Truly” was complimented for recreating the R&B “vibe and feel of the 90s” with the help of songwriter and producer Babyface.
Her follow-up record, My Everything, explored EDM and electro pop genres. Grande expanded the pop and R&B sound on her third album,
Dangerous Woman, which was praised by the Los Angeles Times for integrating elements of different styles, such as reggae-pop (“Side to Side”), dance-pop (“Be Alright”), and guitar-trap fusion (“Sometimes”).
Trap-pop was more heavily featured on her fourth and fifth studio albums, Sweetener and Thank U, Next.
Elias Leight of Rolling Stone opined that Grande “set her sights on conquering trap, savage basslines and jittery swarms of drum programming” and “embrace[d] the sound of hard-bitten Southern hip-hop” on Sweetener, exploring funk music with themes of love and prosperity.
Craig Jenkins of Vulture noted that she embraced trap and hip hop with undertones of R&B on Thank U, Next, with lyrics about breakups, empowerment, and self-love.
Her sixth album, Positions, further emphasized the R&B and trap-pop sound of its two predecessors, with lyrics discussing sex and romance.
Influences
Grande grew up listening mainly to urban pop and 1990s music. She credited Gloria Estefan with inspiring her to pursue a music career after Estefan saw and complemented Grande’s performance on a cruise ship when she was eight years old.
Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston are her primary vocal influences: “I love Mariah Carey. She is literally my favorite human being on the planet.
And of course Whitney [Houston] as well. As far as vocal influences go, Whitney and Mariah pretty much cover it.”
Grande was also influenced vocally by Destiny’s Child, Celine Dion and Madonna. She reflected on her childhood by posting videos of herself singing songs from Dion’s 1997 album Let’s Talk About Love on her social media.
Grande credits Madonna with “pav[ing] the way for me and also every other female artist” and admitted to being “obsessed with her entire discography”.
Musically, Grande admires India Arie because her “music makes me feel like everything is going to be okay”, loves Brandy’s songs because “her riffs are incredibly on point,” and praised Imogen Heap’s “intricate” song structure.
Grande also named Judy Garland as a childhood influence, admiring her ability to tell “a story when she sings”.
Music producer and collaborator Savan Kotecha stated that he and Grande were influenced by Lauryn Hill when creating her fourth album Sweetener and its lead single “No Tears Left to Cry”.
Kotecha told Variety, “we were listening to Lauryn Hill about chord changes and why we stick to four chords all the time”.
Grande expressed admiration for rappers’ unconventional music release strategy. She told Billboard, “My dream has always been to be—obviously not a rapper, but, like, to put out music in the way that a rapper does.
I feel like there are certain standards that pop women are held to that men aren’t … It’s just like, ‘Bruh, I just want to … drop [music] the way these boys do.”
It inspired her to release “Thank U, Next” without any prior announcement, which The Ringer called “more of a Drake move than an Ariana Grande move.”
Voice
Grande has been described as a soprano, possessing a four-octave vocal range and a whistle register.
With the release of Yours Truly, critics compared Grande’s wide vocal range and music to those of Mariah Carey.
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd of Billboard wrote that both Carey and Grande have “the talent to let their vocals do the talking … that’s not where the similarities end. … Grande is subverting it with cute, comfortable, and on-trend dresses with a feminine slant.”
Mark Savage of BBC News named Grande “one of pop’s most intriguing and gifted singers” and complimented her “unrivalled vocal control”.
In The New York Times, Jon Pareles noted that Grande’s voice “can be silky, breathy or cutting, swooping through long melismas or jabbing out short R&B phrases; it’s always supple and airborne, never forced.”
Composer and playwright Jason Robert Brown wrote in a 2016 Time magazine article, “[N]o matter how much you are underestimated … you are going to open your mouth and that unbelievable sound is going to come out.
That […] instrument […] allows you to shut down every objection and every obstacle.”
Public image
Grande cited Audrey Hepburn as a major style influence in her early career; however, she later found emulating Hepburn’s style “a little boring”.
She also drew inspiration from actresses of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Ann-Margret, Nancy Sinatra, and Marilyn Monroe.
Grande’s modest look early in her career was described as “age appropriate” in comparison to contemporary artists who grew up in the public eye.
Jim Farber of New York’s Daily News wrote in 2014 that Grande received less attention “for how little she wears or how graphically she moves than for how she sings.”
That year, she abandoned her earlier style in favor of short skirts and crop tops with knee-high boots in live performances and red carpet events.
She also began regularly wearing cat and bunny ears and, subsequently, oversized jackets and hoodies. Grande’s style is often imitated by social media influencers and celebrities.
After years of dyeing her hair red for her role as Cat Valentine on Nickelodeon, Grande wore extensions as her hair recovered from damage.
Anne T. Donahue of MTV News noted that her “iconic” high ponytail has received more attention than her fashion choices.
Although Grande drew criticism for alleged impolite interactions with reporters and fans in 2014, she dismissed the reports as “weird, inaccurate depictions”.
Rolling Stone wrote: “Some may cry ‘diva’, but it’s also Grande just taking a stand to not allow others to control her image.”
In July 2015, Grande sparked controversy after being seen on surveillance video in a doughnut shop licking doughnuts that were on display and saying “I hate Americans. I hate America.
This is disgusting”, referring to a tray of doughnuts. She subsequently apologized, saying that she is “EXTREMELY proud to be an American” and that her comments rather referred to obesity in the United States.
She later released a video apology for “behaving poorly”. The incident was parodied by The Muppets. Grande herself poked fun at the incident while hosting Saturday Night Live in 2016, saying,
“A lot of kid stars end up doing drugs, or in jail, or pregnant, or get caught licking a doughnut they didn’t pay for.”
In 2020, she said that she stopped doing interviews for a while out of fear that her words would be misconstrued and that she would be labeled a “diva”.
With a large following on social media, Grande is one of the most influential celebrities on the internet.
As of January 2024, her YouTube channel has over 53 million subscribers, making her among the most subscribed music artists on the platform;
Her music videos have been viewed a total of over 25 billion times, with eight of them reaching over one billion views; her Spotify profile has amassed over 95 million followers,
Making her the fourth most-followed artist and second most-followed woman; her Instagram account has over 380 million followers,
Making her the sixth-most-followed individual and third-most-followed woman; her now deactivated Twitter account had over 85 million followers,[non-primary source needed] making it the seventh-most-followed account,
At the time; her Facebook page has over 42 million followers,[non-primary source needed] and her TikTok account has over 34 million followers.
Often regarded as a pop icon and triple threat entertainer,wax figures of Grande are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world,
Including New York, Orlando, Amsterdam, Bangkok, Sydney, Berlin, London, Vienna, Hollywood, Hong Kong and Blackpool.
Awards and recognition
In 2016 and 2019, Grande was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world.
In 2017, Celia Almeida of the Miami New Times wrote that of all the biggest pop stars of the past 20 years, Grande made the most convincing transition “from ingénue to an independent female artist”.
In 2018, Bloomberg named her the “first pop diva of the streaming generation” in 2020.
Grande was also included in Pitchfork’s list of “The 200 Most Important Artists of Pitchfork’s First 25 Years” for “emerging with music that pushed her artistry further as it asserted a magical trifecta of hope, joy, and a powerhouse voice”.
Her song “Thank U, Next” was in Rolling Stone’s 2021 revision of their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2023, the magazine included Grande among the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Many recording artists have cited Grande as an influence, including Madison Beer, Sufjan Stevens, Melanie Martinez, Meghan Trainor, Troye Sivan,
Jungkook of BTS, Billie Eilish, Zara Larsson, Bryson Tiller, Lana Del Rey, Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast, Grace VanderWaal, Breanna Yde, Maggie Lindemann, Charlie Puth, Giselle of Aespa, and Tate McRae.
In May 2024, Katy Perry claimed that Grande is “the best singer of our generation”.
Philanthropy and activism
At age ten, Grande co-founded the South Florida youth singing group Kids Who Care, which performed at charitable fund-raisers and raised over $500,000 in 2007 alone.
In 2009, as a member of the charitable organization Broadway in South Africa, she and her brother Frankie performed and taught music and dance to children in Gugulethu, South Africa.
She was featured with Bridgit Mendler and Kat Graham in Seventeen magazine in a 2013 public campaign to end online bullying called “Delete Digital Drama”.
After watching the film Blackfish that year, she urged fans to stop supporting SeaWorld.
In September 2014, Grande participated at the charitable Stand Up to Cancer television program, performing her song “My Everything” in memory of her grandfather, who had died of cancer that July.
Grande has adopted several rescue dogs as pets and has promoted pet adoption at her concerts.
In 2016, she launched a line of lip shades, “Ariana Grande’s MAC Viva Glam”, with MAC Cosmetics, the profits of which benefited people affected by HIV and AIDS.
