Ariana Grande was ready to say “boy bye, bye, bye…” to her music career right before she started to film “Wicked.”
The pop star has confessed that she had no desire to make a follow-up to her 2020 album, “Positions,” until playing the role of Glinda in the blockbuster adaptation of the hit musical reignited her “spark” for making music.
Appearing on “Shut Up Evan” with Evan Ross Katz, the 32-year-old said, “[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 album ever again when I left for London. That was kind of my secret, but I didn’t think I was going to, you know.”
The “Thank U, Next” hitmaker says Glinda’s strong “self-belief” inspired her return to music.
Continuing to say, “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.”
Ariana went on to release the album “Eternal Sunshine” in 2024.
She explains, “I felt like just a genuine spark, like a reconnection and inspiration and something, I mean, maybe I missed it. 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.”
Ariana also wasn’t planning a tour, but she would have been “sad” if she didn’t get to sing the album live, “Something inside is saying I have to do it.”
“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.”
However, Ariana — who will embark on “The Eternal Sunshine Tour” in 2026, her first since 2019’s “Sweetener World Tour” — admits it could be a while before she tours again.
She said, “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.”
Ari 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.”