Ariana Grande wants to step back from visibility? Good for her

Is “taking a step back from visibility” about to become the new “conscious uncoupling”?

In all seriousness, it does sound like Ariana Grande has been having a time of it, and the chanteuse and actor could use a break.

Grande’s team issued a statement to People said that it will start after she wraps her Eternal Sunshine Tour, which is due to end after a 10-date run in London on September 1.

“She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny.”

There are two keywords in that statement which hints at what is behind Grande’s upcoming hiatus – “healthily” and “scrutiny”.

Grande’s appearance has been the subject of online commentary with many social media users speculating on her weight. By specifically using the word “healthily”, Grande’s publicity machine is refuting all that noise.

People also quoted a “source close to” Grande who emphasised that “she performs a very physical show, and there is a lot of athleticism involved, she performs healthily and successfully at a very high level night after night”.

Look, the “source close to” could be the same person as the one who wrote the official statement – “healthily” is actually not an oft-used word, it doesn’t roll off the tongue – and, so, with its repetition we can see there’s one narrative that is being prioritised.

To be fair to Grande, while it’s no longer OK for mainstream outlets to be straight-up criticising celebrity women’s weight, whichever way the scale has tipped, that hasn’t stopped social media users.

And tabloid media has also continued the same line of attack but veiled it as “fans are worried about” so-and-so’s weight/mental health/physical health, so they can still publish click-generating unflattering images of that celebrity under the disingenuous guise of “we care”.

Grande and her team are now hoping that if she takes “a step back from visibility”, there won’t be an endless cycle of new photos and videos to fuel the scrutiny.

The latest tranche was triggered by the release of the music video for the title song, Petal, off her new album.

But if people were listening to the words from several of her new songs, they might’ve realised that Grande is interrogating her relationship with fame and public exposure.

Hate That I Made You Love Me, a track that was released ahead of the album, suggests that she feels the burden of being something to others – “I’ve held your projections when you’ve felt so insecure/Tell me, why is it this way?/Is it really my fault you all gave me your hearts of your own accord?”

On Petal, the lyrics include “Tell me who’s to blame, it is the people or myself?/Yep/But this time feels so very different/This is not a cry for help/A couple million for my thoughts/I’ve got plenty/But I am not a victim/B-tch, I’m practically drowning in my blessings/It’s bye, this time for real/Tired of painting endless pictures of a life that isn’t mine”.

In the video that’s caused so much fresh consternation, Grande plays a character (a version of herself, maybe) who’s auditioning in front of a panel of old, male executives who rejects her, and one them says, “We miss the old you, maybe you could go out and find her and come back and give it another shot”.

The Grande character then nods politely before she picks up a chainsaw and pulls a Patrick Bateman on all of them, completely splattered in blood. That feels like a pretty revealing metaphor for how she might be feeling about external validation.

She will also bow out of the previously announced West End revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sundays in the Park with George. She was to be one of the co-leads alongside her Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey. The stage production is still due to start at the Barbican Centre in London in a year’s time, but Grande’s role will now be recast.

Grande is part of the Focker-in-Law ensemble, in which she plays the soon-to-be daughter-in-law of Ben Stiller’s character. That film is due out at the end of November, and it’s not clear whether she’ll still take part in promotional activities for its release.

She has had a very busy slate in recent years, releasing the Eternal Sunshine album in 2024 as well as Petal only last week while still on tour for the 2024 record.

She has also been in and promoted the two Wicked film adaptations. The first movie, in particular, was a gruelling, months-long publicity campaign which then morphed into a full-scale awards season operation after she and the film was nominated for Oscars.

The Wicked press tour required her and co-star Cynthia Erivo to be everywhere, making stops in Sao Paulo, Paris, London, Singapore and New York, and featured scores of interviews and social media appearances.

The closeness of Grande and Erivo, whether real or staged, meant several moments from that tour went viral, most notably the “holding space” interview with journalist Tracy E. Gilchrist.

The promotional obligations for the second Wicked film was comparatively scaled back but likely still took a toll.

There was also the added drama of Grande’s romance with Wicked supporting actor Ethan Slater.

The two stars met on the set of Wicked, and Slater’s former wife, Lilly Jay, later wrote a bruising personal essay about her experience of moving to the UK, where Wicked was filmed, two months after giving birth to their baby, and ending up divorced.

In June, news broke that Grande and Slater had split after three years together. The break-up had happened, apparently, months earlier and was “amicable”.

Three years ago, Grande responded to online body shamers expressing/feigning concern.

“The body that you’ve been comparing my current body to was the unhealthiest version of my body. I was on a lot of anti-depressants and drinking on them and eating poorly,” she posted at the time.

“I was at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my healthy, but that in fact wasn’t my healthy.”

If Grande wants to step out of the limelight, then surely the response should be, as it was in the Petal video of an older receptionist to the blood-soaked Grande character after she exacted her revenge against those disapproving naysayers, “Good for you, b-tch”.