Ariana Grande candid about her mental health, how it affects her music releases

Ariana Grande shows no sign of slowing down during the most prolific year of her career.

After releasing two albums in six months, “Sweetener” in August 2018 and “Thank U, Next” in February 2019, Grande tweeted that she has more new music on the way, and also shared how her new, more spontaneous approach to releasing music actually helped her mental health.

“man, let’s drop it tomorrow night @VictoriaMonet,” she wrote on Twitter about her potential new song, tagging her songwriting collaborator Victoria Monet. “seven rings is ab to be number one for eight weeks and the album might go back to no. 1 too…. we need to celebrate tbh ! life too short and too sweet rn.”

Grande then took to Instagram Stories to elaborate on why she’s opted for a less formal strategy for releasing her new music, explaining that navigating promotional cycles for her previous albums left her feeling exhausted.

“Jus saying, thanks for being supportive of my random, impulsive and excessive music releases. The first few years of this were really hard on my mental health and energy,” she wrote, according to screenshots obtained by People and the Independent. “I was so tired from promo trips and was always losing my voice and never knew what city I was in when I woke up,” she added. “It was so much. It was worth it and I am grateful for everything I learned and accomplished when I did things that way, of course.  … It’s a very dope feeling and has breathed so much air back into my lil lungs. Thank u thank u.”

Grande previously talked to Billboard about her goal of “(putting) out music in the way that a rapper does,” inspired by hip-hop artists’ more experimental release strategies.

“I feel like there are certain standards that pop women are held to that men aren’t,” she told the outlet. “We have to do the teaser before the single, then do the single, and wait to do the preorder, and radio has to impact before the video, and we have to do the discount on this day, and all this (expletive). It’s just like, ‘Bruh, I just want to (expletive) talk to my fans and sing and write music and drop it the way these boys do. Why do they get to make records like that and I don’t?’ So I do and I did and I am, and I will continue to.”

Grande’s “7 Rings” spent a seventh week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 charts, following the seven-week reign her previous single “Thank U, Next” had at No. 1 on the charts last year.

NOTE: Ariana Grande headlines the United Center June 4-5, and then returns to Chicago for Lollapalooza in August.

Maeve McDermott, USA TODAY
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