Ariana Grande nearly quit music!
The 32-year-old actress and two-time Grammy award-winning pop star shared in a new interview that she had planned to end her music career before going to film Wicked.
Ariana, of course, stepped away from music to focus on her quest to land the role of Glinda in the film adaptation of the popular Broadway musical, which she eventually booked. Her last album prior to that, Positions, was released in 2020 and her last tour was the year before.
Keep reading to find out more…
While speaking on Shut Up Evan with Evan Ross Katz, Ariana revealed that she was actually going to stop doing music, but filming Wicked reinvigorated her and helped her want to make music again.
“[Playing Glinda] has done so much for Ariana. It has totally rearranged everything about my relationship to creating, you know. I didn’t think I was going to make an alum ever again when I left for London,” she said. “That was kind of my secret, but I didn’t think I was going to, you know.”
She went on to explain that “through the act of performing it and Glinda’s certainty and Glinda’s belief in herself totally ignited something, a strength in me that I missed, that I really needed.”
“So I learned a lot from her as a character who learns so much over the course of these two films and has to look at herself in the mirror constantly and sort of peel away at the pieces of her that don’t feel aligned. So I do think that I was kind of forced to do that alongside her.”
A little later in the interview, Ariana shared what happened while making the Wicked films that made her want to go back and make more music.
“I felt like just a genuine spark, like a reconnection and inspiration and something, I mean, maybe I missed it,” she said. “Maybe it’s as simple as I missed it. But I do feel like you have to miss things in order to learn to become better for them. I think I learned so much, and then also I genuinely wanted to do it. I just felt like I couldn’t not. It was an inspired moment and I had to write an album and I had to do it.”
She also noted that her upcoming Eternal Sunshine Tour stemmed from a pure desire of wanting to perform these songs live, but don’t expect another tour anytime soon…
“Something inside is saying I have to do it,” Ariana shared. “And I’m grateful for that because I don’t think I would have said that about a tour forever ago. But you know, I’m just being open and honest about how I feel about these things in real time and following the impulses creatively. You know, they just shout, and then there we are.”
“I think putting out the deluxe informed me that I had to do it because I really felt like I’m going to be really sad if I don’t sing this album live. I love this album, and I need to sing it. And I think that would be a really special experience for me and my fans and also how beautiful to re-imagine my relationship to touring in this baby step way. And not that—I mean, this probably won’t happen for a long time again after this one.
She continued, “But still, it’ll heal something, and it’ll be really beautiful the same way that this album has. I think it’ll be a nice next step, and I think it’ll be so fun to see the fans. So that’s how it happened and why it happened.”
If you missed it, a recent clip from the upcoming Wicked: For Good shared the first look at the younger version of Ariana‘s character!
