Ariana Grande has expanded upon her recent decision to take \u201ca step back from visibility\u201d when her tour ends next month, as a result of what a spokesperson called \u201cendless, ongoing public scrutiny\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Monday night during the first show of a three-night run in Chicago, the 33-year-old musician and actor read from notes as she told fans: \u201cThe announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing. It is something that I had decided to plan quietly, a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
The planned step-back includes Grande\u2019s withdrawal from a production of Stephen Sondheim\u2019s Sunday in the Park with George at London\u2019s Barbican next summer, where she would have appeared alongside her Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey.<\/p>\n
Grande appeared to reference ongoing public concern about her weight, which heightened after the release of the video for Petal, the lead single from her new album of the same name, last week. When shared on Instagram, the video received a community note pointing eating disorder sufferers towards resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard my fans were worried negativity was ruining things for me but that could not be more than the opposite,\u201d she said. \u201cBoundaries need to be set, human beings do need a break sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grande said she had made her decision from a \u201cthoughtful and empowered place\u201d. She continued: \u201cNo matter what noises exist out there, nothing will ever be able to distort my reality, or be more real to me than this love that we share.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grande\u2019s new album frequently expresses her frustration with the expectations of the public; in the video for Petal, she murders a group of critics with a chainsaw. On stage in Chicago, she said: \u201cI love you, this is what I want always … the rest of that [commentary] is not mine to carry.\u201d<\/p>\n
She called her current tour \u201cone of the most healing, beautiful, correct and special experiences\u201d of her life. The run continues with a 10-night residency at the O2 Arena in London from 15 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ariana Grande has expanded upon her recent decision to take \u201ca step back from visibility\u201d when her tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-843272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}