Like all female pop stars entering adulthood these days, Ariana Grande’s under pressure to not only prove herself grown and ๐ e๐ฅy, but that she’s somehow lifting up herself and other women as she doesโฆGrande photographed April 22 at the Paramour Estate in Los Angeles. Styling by Law Roach. Grande wears Chanel sunglasses, an H. Stern necklace, Tacori rings and Harry Kotlar earrings.While it boasts five bedrooms, marble floors and a huge window overlooking beautiful Benedict Canyon, the Beverly Hills homeย Ariana Grandeย moved into last summer lacks any kind of decor โ unless you count the picture frames leaning against a nearby wall, their corners still wrapped in cardboard. On this Monday afternoon in April, Grande sits in a plush white chair at the head of her sprawling dining room table. Sheโs wearing a plain black top, black stretchy pants and unmarked black sneakers, and her hair hangs over her chest in two loosely braided ropes. A MacBook, iPhone, bottle of water and Starbucks iced coffee sit before her. Itโs as if a Hollywood pitch meeting is about to break out โ an impression thatโs reinforced when she offers a one-sentence summary ofย Dangerous Woman, her third album, throatily enunciating each syllable: โA 22-year-old girl comes into her own trying to balance growing up, love and a lot of other bullshit along the way.โBut in Ariana Grandeโs world, things are always a bit more complex โ odder? โ than they first seem. After delivering this little coming-of-age log line, for example, she points her big eyes up at the ceiling in search of a kicker and comes out with this: โAnd she has a black latex Super Bunny within!โ (More on that in a moment.) Once Grande โ a former Nickelodeon star and gifted comic actress who expertly impersonates other pop stars onย Saturday Night Liveย andย The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallonย โ warms up, the barely furnished house begins to feel less like a conference center and more like an acting studio. During our talk she dramatically bats her lashes and flashes an exaggerated grin, all with self-aware elan. She also does a perfectly mealy-mouthed impression of rapperย Futureย and breaks into โComplicatedโ byย Avril Lavigne. But the best is her Jurassic Park velociraptor: She curls her fingers into claws, hunches and does a Wookiee-like growl: โHrrrrlll!โArianaย Grande photographed on April 22 at the Paramour Estate in Los Angeles.Itโs all very charming โย Celine Dionย told Grande she โpeedโ watching her re-create her signature chest pound for Fallon โ but Grandeโs skill for mimicry doesnโt make it any easier to suss out her true self. Is she an entertainer in the old-school mode, forged in the fire of TV, Broadway and pop-music child stardom? A diva tucking her insecurities behind a lot of razzle-dazzle? Someone who might actually slip into a black-latex bunny costume?
As a matter of fact, Grande appears on the cover ofย Dangerous Womanย in shiny black headgear with long ears. It looks like it was designed forย American Horror Storyย by the cartoonists at Warner Bros. The Super Bunny โis my superhero, or supervillain โ whatever Iโm feeling on the day,โ says Grande. โWhenever I doubt myself or question choices I know in my gut are right โ because other people are telling me other things โ Iโm like, โWhat would that bad bitch Super Bunny do?โ She helps me call the shots.โ
Whether owing to her gut, her team or her alter-egos, it has been a grand career for Grande so far. With her March hit โDangerous Womanโ โ a sultry R&B track with a self-empowerment message and an arena-annihilating hook โ Grande became the first artist in Billboard Hot 100 history to have the lead single of each of her first three albums debut in the top 10. She has sold 1.3 million albums in the United States, according to Nielsen Music; grossed $41.8 million on 2015โs Honeymoon Tour, according to Billboard Boxscore; claims 4 billion YouTube views; clocks in at fourth among all humans on Instagram (with 71.4 million followers) and 18th on Twitter (38.8 million); and will kick off her album release with a performance at the Billboard Music Awards on May 22. And, she says, โI feel like Iโm still just getting started โ a lot of people forget Iโm only three years in.โOn The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April.
Grandeโs challenge is with her quote unquote brand. Like all female pop stars entering adulthood these days, sheโs under pressure to not only prove herself grown and ๐ e๐ฅy, but that sheโs somehow lifting up herself and other women as she does it. And in her bid to be taken seriously, she has more to overcome than many of her peers. The world first met her as Cat Valentine, the adorably dopey character at the heart of two Nickelodeon teen sitcoms (the second,ย Sam & Cat, ended in 2014), and she hasnโt quite shaken off that childlike sheen. Her tiny stature (sheโs just 5 feet tall), love of Harry Potter (she describes Super Bunny as โmy patronusโ) and all the animal-themed, Lolita-meets-S&M gear donโt exactly help. Neither did getting caught on a bakery security camera in 2015 licking pastries that werenโt hers while declaring, โI hate America.โKate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Grande, Sasheer Zamata, Cecily Strong, Vanessa Bayer and Aidy Bryant in the โThis Is Not a Feminist Songโ SNL sketch in March.
Still, Grandeโs feminism is clearly no put-on. โDo you want to see something I saved to my phone because it upset me so much?โ she asks me. Itโs a collection of tweets from a U.K. radio station with a salacious streak โ two praise Justin Bieber andย Zayn Malikย for showing skin, and two scoldย Miley Cyrusย and Kim Kardashian for the same. โIf youโre going to rave about how ๐ e๐ฅy a male artist looks with his shirt off,โ says Grande, โand a woman decides to get in her panties or show her boobies for a photo shoot, she needs to be treated with the same awe and admiration. I will say it until Iโm an old-ass lady with my tits out at Whole Foods. Iโll be in the produce aisle, naked at 95, with a sensible ponytail, one strand of hair left on my head and a Chanel bow. Mark my words. See you there with my 95 dogs.โ
In June, Grande tweeted a screen grab of an essay she wrote about her budding independence, capped with a 1971 Steinem quote: โAny woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. She will need her sisterhood.โ
Source:https://www.billboard.com