Trivia / Ariana Grande

• Breakthrough Hit: Victorious as an actress, "The Way" as a singer.
• Breakup Breakout: Victorious was one of Nickelodeon's most popular live-action shows. After it ended in 2013, Ariana embarked on a massively successful music career as pop star, churning out numerous iconic hits in a short time and scoring platinum albums, and has never looked back since. Her meteoric rise has completely eclipsed the show itself, easily becoming the most successful star ever produced by Nick.
• Bury Your Art: "Focus" was originally going to be the lead single on Dangerous Woman (which was first named Moonlight at the time), but after mixed reception, was removed from the album and instead remained on the Japanese release only. It's not surprising she did this, as it sounds nothing like the other songs on the album. It probably didn't help that it debuted and peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and it didn't sell very well outside its first week.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: On Winx Club, Family Guy, the US dubs of Snowflake, The White Gorilla (with Jennette McCurdy) and Metegol, and technically Sam & Cat's "#StuckInABox" because while she isn't actually seen for most of the episode, she's still heard.
• Content Leak: Eternal Sunshine was leaked on TikTok ten days before it was due to release.
• Costume Backlash: She admitted that she wasn't always fond of her red hair, which she had to dye for Victorious. Specifically, what was at first a very simple dye-job ended up resulting in a complicated bleaching procedure which not only took hours of additional prep but eventually destroyed her hair to the point where she had to wear a wig even off the set while her hair recovered (for example, any appearances outside of her Cat role with red hair was likely with the wig). Consequently she wore a red wig for the Cat role (rumor has it this was even a contractual condition for her to continue her role as Cat) and returned to being a brunette after Sam & Cat was cancelled.
• Creator Backlash: Grande views her first single, "Put Your Hearts Up", as such. The song is noticeably different in its tone and themes from her other work and has a more childish and bubblegum-oriented quality to it. She has said in a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone magazine that she was miserable during the making of the music video, and called the song "straight out of hell". She felt it was aimed at the tween fans who would have watched her in Victorious, causing it to feel overly-sweet and saccharine. This went against what she wanted in her music, hoping for a more mature audience. In particular, she spoke out against the video, where she looked uncomfortable, overly tanned and wore a princess dress. The song was never featured in her albums, and "The Way" can be seen as a reboot of her career. There's a reason the singer hasn't included the song with the rest in her VEVO certified account. Hilariously, the video is still up but it's edited and glitched out halfway through. However, she later said "Everyone thinks I hate that record. I do not."
• Creator Recovery:
  • Sweetener serves as this due to Ariana recovering the trauma she suffered after the Manchester Arena bombing, her then-ongoing relationship with Mac Miller, which ended during the end of the album's production and then her new relationship with Pete Davidson, which she recorded a song about him just before the album was sent for mixing.
  • thank u, next is this too. Written and recorded in the months following Mac Miller's death, her break-up with Pete Davidson and being publicly groped by the bishop at Aretha Franklin's funeral, it's the most open and personal we've seen Ariana so far.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Dyed her hair red for Victorious as the character Cat. And dark black for a correspondingly dark & gothic video clip. After Sam & Cat ended, she has reverted back to being a brunette.
• Fan Community Nickname: "Arianators" or "Ariana Army".
• God Never Said That: There's been a sustained rumor for quite some time by her fans that claims she said the title of the song "R.E.M." stands for "Rest Easy MAC" and acts as a tribute to the late Mac Miller. However, Common Knowledge would tell you that the song was originally Beyonces’ before being passed on to Ariana who put her own spin on it and was released a month before Mac Miller’s death. The title itself stands for "Rapid Eye Movement" in reference to the songs dream-like melodies.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Her signature look of hair pulled back into a high ponytail came about when she had to keep her hair red for Victorious and later Sam & Cat. The years of dyeing damaged it, so wearing it in the ponytail was initially just to cover all the split ends.
• Romance on the Set:
  • With Graham Phillips from 13. They later broke up.
  • Ariana met Nathan from The Wanted during recording for "Almost Is Never Enough". She started to date him in September 2013, until they broke up in late January 2014.
  • Not a direct example, but she'd appeared a few times on Saturday Night Live, and had been shown interacting with cast member Pete Davidson in a promo clip (and the actual show of course) before they finally got engaged, though that didn't last long as they broke up in October 2018.
  • A more controversial example is her romance with Ethan Slater (who played the munchkin Boq to Grande's Glinda) beginning on the set of Wicked: Part One.
• Sleeper Hit:
  • "The Way" is flat out described on The Other Wiki as an unexpected success. To clarify: Within seven hours of going up on iTunes, it was top of the download charts. It entered the Billboard 100 at No. 10 (By coincidence, this made Ariana the first artist since 2008 to enter the Top 10 with her first single). It peaked a No. 9, and currently is behind "Suit & Tie" by Justin Timberlake featuring Jay-Z and "Best Song Ever" by One Direction as the third-highest first-week sales figures. It has sold over 1.3 million copies alone in the US and spent 17 weeks in the charts, 13 of those weeks in the Top 15. This is all for her first song. Foreshadowing...
  • In only 6 days after she released her debut album, it hit #1 in the country, holding off competition from Tamar Braxton and Nine Inch Nails. More impressively, what was expected to be a very close race between the three albums ended up with Ariana having a strong lead over Braxton's #2 album, larger than the one she had over Nine Inch Nails.
• What Could Have Been: "Thank U, Next" had several different opening verses prepared covering all kinds of relationship statuses. At the time, Ariana was in a very turbulent relationship with Pete Davidson and had no idea where they would be when the song was released (broken up, as it turned out).

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