Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande-Butera[note 1] (born June 26, 1993) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Regarded as a pop icon and an influential figure in popular music, she is noted for her four-octave vocal range and her signature use of the whistle register. Grande has received numerous accolades throughout her career, including one Brit Award, two Grammy Awards, two Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, nine MTV Video Music Awards, and 35 Guinness World Records. Rolling Stone ranked her amongst the greatest vocalists of all time.
Ariana Grande
- Singer
- songwriter
- actress
2008–present
- Founder, chairwoman, and owner of R.E.M. Beauty
Frankie Grande (half-brother)
Vocals
Grande began her career at age 15 by appearing in the Broadway musical 13 (2008). She rose to prominence for her performance as Cat Valentine in the Nickelodeon television series Victorious (2010–2013), as well as the spin-off follow-up series Sam & Cat (2013–2014), and signed with Republic Records in 2011. Grande's debut studio album, Yours Truly (2013), incorporated retro-pop and R&B elements and yielded the successful single "The Way". My Everything (2014), her second album, experimented with EDM and catapulted her to worldwide stardom through the singles "Problem", "Break Free", and "Bang Bang". Grande further explored pop and R&B with her third album Dangerous Woman (2016), which solidified her critical and commercial success.
Personal struggles influenced Grande's trap-infused fourth and fifth albums, Sweetener (2018) and Thank U, Next (2019). The former won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album, while the latter broke several streaming records and was nominated for Album of the Year. Thank U, Next garnered two Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs with its title track and "7 Rings", and made Grande the first solo artist to simultaneously occupy the top three positions on the chart. She broke the record for the most number-one debuts in Hot 100 history with the title track of her trap-influenced sixth album, Positions (2020), and the collaborations "Stuck with U" with Justin Bieber and "Rain on Me" with Lady Gaga, the latter of which won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Grande ventured into dance music on her seventh album, Eternal Sunshine (2024), which produced the number-one singles "Yes, And?" and "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)". She returned to acting with the political satire Don't Look Up (2021), and will star as Glinda in the upcoming two-part film adaptation of Wicked (2024–2025).
Among the world's best-selling music artists, Grande has sold over 90 million records; all of her studio albums have been certified platinum or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Having amassed 98 billion streams thus far, Grande is one of the most-streamed artists of all time and the most-streamed female artist, as of 2021. She was the most-streamed female act of the 2010s and has the most songs with over a billion streams for a woman, with 14 on Spotify. Grande also has a large social media following; with over 380 million followers, she is the sixth-most-followed individual on Instagram and one of the most-subscribed and most followed musicians on YouTube and Spotify. She was named Woman of the Year (2018) and the most successful female artist to debut in the 2010s by Billboard, featured in listicles such as Time 100 (2016 and 2019), Forbes Celebrity 100 (2019–2020), and ranked the highest-paid female musician of 2020 by Forbes. Outside of music and film, Grande has worked with many charitable organizations and advocates for animal rights, mental health, and gender, racial, and LGBT equality. Her business ventures include R.E.M. Beauty, a cosmetics brand launched in 2021, and a fragrance line that has earned over $1 billion in global retail sales.
Early life
Ariana Grande-Butera was born on June 26, 1993, in Boca Raton, Florida.[2][3] She is the daughter of Joan Grande, the Brooklyn-born CEO of Hose-McCann Communications, a manufacturer of marine communications equipment owned by the Grande family since 1964,[4] and Edward Butera, a graphic design firm owner in Boca Raton.[5][6] Grande is of Italian[7] descent and has described herself as an Italian American with Sicilian and Abruzzese roots.[8] She has an older half-brother, Frankie Grande, who is an entertainer and producer.[9] Her family moved from New York to Florida before her birth, and her parents separated when she was eight or nine years old.[6] Grande has a close relationship with her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Grande.[10] At age 8, she sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Panthers' home game against the Chicago Blackhawks on January 16, 2002.[11]
As a young child, Grande performed with the Fort Lauderdale Children's Theater,[12] playing her first role as the title character in the musical Annie. She also performed in their productions of The Wizard of Oz and Beauty and the Beast.[7][13] At age eight, she performed at a karaoke lounge on a cruise ship and with various orchestras such as South Florida's Philharmonic, Florida Sunshine Pops and Symphonic Orchestras.[14] During this time, she attended the Pine Crest School and later North Broward Preparatory.[15]
Artistry
Musical style
Grande's music is generally pop and R&B with elements of EDM, hip hop,[213][214] and trap,[215] the latter first appearing prominently on her Christmas & Chill extended play. While consistently maintaining pop and R&B tones, she has increasingly incorporated trap into her music as her career has progressed,[216] thanks to her work with record producer Tommy Brown.[217] She has collaborated with Brown on every album thus far and stated that "one of the things I love most about working with Tommy is that none of the beats he plays me ever sound the same."[218] Grande learned how to sound engineer and produce her own vocals because she "love[s] being hands on" with every project, revealing that rapper Mac Miller first taught her how to use the digital audio workstation Pro Tools.[219] Collaborator Justin Tranter remarked that he felt inspired seeing how involved Grande is in creating her music "from the writing to the vision to the storytelling and to even engineering and comping her own vocals."[220] She has co-written songs addressing a wide variety of themes, such as love, sex, wealth, breakups, independence, empowerment, self-love and moving on from the past.[221]
Grande's debut album Yours Truly was complimented for recreating the R&B "vibe and feel of the 90s" with the help of songwriter and producer Babyface.[222] Her follow-up record, My Everything, explored EDM and electropop genres.[223] Grande expanded the pop and R&B sound on her third album, Dangerous Woman, which was praised by the Los Angeles Times for integrating elements of different styles, such as reggae-pop ("Side to Side"), dance-pop ("Be Alright"), and guitar-trap fusion ("Sometimes").[224] Trap-pop was more heavily featured on her fourth and fifth studio albums, Sweetener and Thank U, Next.[216] Elias Leight of Rolling Stone opined that Grande "set her sights on conquering trap, savage basslines and jittery swarms of drum programming" and "embrace[d] the sound of hard-bitten Southern hip-hop" on Sweetener, exploring funk music with themes of love and prosperity.[225][226] Craig Jenkins of Vulture noted that she embraced trap and hip hop with undertones of R&B on Thank U, Next,[227] with lyrics about breakups, empowerment, and self-love.[226] Her sixth album, Positions, further emphasized the R&B and trap-pop sound of its two predecessors, with lyrics discussing sex and romance.[228][229]
Philanthropy and activism
At age ten, Grande co-founded the South Florida youth singing group Kids Who Care, which performed at charitable fund-raisers and raised over $500,000 in 2007 alone.[357] In 2009, as a member of the charitable organization Broadway in South Africa, she and her brother Frankie performed and taught music and dance to children in Gugulethu, South Africa.[358][359]
She was featured with Bridgit Mendler and Kat Graham in Seventeen magazine in a 2013 public campaign to end online bullying called "Delete Digital Drama".[360] After watching the film Blackfish that year, she urged fans to stop supporting SeaWorld.[5] In September 2014, Grande participated at the charitable Stand Up to Cancer television program, performing her song "My Everything" in memory of her grandfather, who had died of cancer that July.[361] Grande has adopted several rescue dogs as pets and has promoted pet adoption at her concerts.[362] In 2016, she launched a line of lip shades, "Ariana Grande's MAC Viva Glam", with MAC Cosmetics, the profits of which benefited people affected by HIV and AIDS.[363][364]
In 2015, Grande and Miley Cyrus performed a cover of Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" as part of Cyrus' "Backyard Sessions" to benefit her Happy Hippie Foundation, which helps homeless and LGBT youths.[365] Later that year, Grande headlined the Dance On the Pier event, part of the LGBT Pride Week in New York City.[366] As a feminist, Grande wrote a well-received, "empowering" essay on Twitter decrying the double standard and misogyny in the focus of the press on female musicians' relationships and sex lives instead of "their value as an individual".[367][368] She noted that she has "more to talk about" concerning her music and accomplishments rather than her romantic relationships.[369][370] That year, Grande joined Madonna to raise funds for orphaned children in Malawi;[371] she and Victoria Monét recorded "Better Days" in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.[372] To aid the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, Grande organized the One Love Manchester concert and re-released "One Last Time" and her live performance of "Over the Rainbow" at the event as charity singles.[373][374] The total amount raised was reportedly $23 million (more than £17 million),[258][104] and she received praise for her "grace and strength" in leading the benefit concert.[375][373] Madeline Roth of MTV wrote that the performance "bolstered courage among an audience that desperately needed it. ... Returning to the stage was a true act of bravery and resilience".[376] In 2017, New York magazine's Vulture section ranked the event as the No. 1 concert of the year,[377] and Billboard's Mitchell Harrison called Grande a "gay icon" for her LGBT-friendly lyrics and performances and "support for the LGBTQ community".[378]
In September 2017, Grande performed in A Concert for Charlottesville which benefitted the victims of the August 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.[379] In March 2018, she participated in March for Our Lives to support gun control reform.[380] Grande donated the proceeds from the first show in Atlanta on her Sweetener World Tour to Planned Parenthood in a response to the passage of a number of anti-abortion laws in several states including Georgia.[381][382] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Grande donated between $500 and $1,000 each to a number of fans as financial support.[383] Grande also supported a COVID-19 fund named Project 100, which aimed to provide $1,000 digital payments to 100,000 families who have been greatly impacted by the pandemic.[384] In May 2020, Grande announced that all net proceeds from her collaboration with singer Justin Bieber, "Stuck With U", would be donated to the First Responders Children's Foundation to fund grants and scholarships for children of frontline workers who are working during the global pandemic.[165] That month, Grande joined a Los Angeles protest against the murder of George Floyd, demanding justice and asking fans to sign petitions condemning the act of police brutality. She highlighted white privilege and called for more activism outside social media.[385][386] The following month, she praised a Black-owned coffee shop on Instagram, and encouraged her LA-based followers to support the business. In recent years, Grande surprised kids, who spend the holiday at children's hospitals in L.A. and the UK, with gifts from wish lists at the UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital and the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, among others. Manchester Foundation Trust Charity revealed that Grande had gifted nearly 1,000 presents to patients across the hospital network's children's wards and newborn intensive care units in 2021.[387][388]
In June 2021, Grande, along with a dozen other celebrities signed an open letter to Congress to pass the Equality Act highlighting the Act would protect "marginalized communities".[389] In the same month, Grande partnered with the online portal BetterHelp, and gave away $2 million worth of therapy to fans.[390][391] On International Transgender Day of Visibility in 2022, she launched the Protect & Defend Trans Youth Fund to benefit transgender youth, pledging to match every donation up until $1.5 million.[392] In May 2022, Grande was among 160 artists and influencers, who signed a 'Bans Off Our Bodies' full-page advertisement in The New York Times, in support of abortion rights in the US.[393] Grande was also one of 175 entertainers to sign an open letter to oppose books bans in US schools in 2023.[394] In June 2022, Grande endorsed Karen Bass for 2022 Los Angeles mayoral election.[395]
Business and ventures
Products and endorsements
In November 2015, she released a limited edition handbag in collaboration with Coach.[396] In January 2016, she launched a makeup collection with MAC Cosmetics, donating 100% of proceeds to the MAC AIDS Fund.[397] In February 2016, Grande launched a fashion line with Lipsy London.[398] Later that year, she teamed up with Brookstone, using the concept art of artist Wenqing Yan, to design cat ear headphones.[399] In 2017, Grande collaborated with Square Enix to create a character based on herself for the mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. Grande was a limited-time unlockable character as part of the Dangerous Woman Tour event, which also included an orchestral remix of Grande's song "Touch It"; the character, Dangerous Ariana, is a magical support character who uses music-based attacks.[400][401] In September 2017, she became a brand ambassador for Reebok.[402] In August 2018, she partnered with American Express for The Sweetener Sessions, a partnership which continued through the Sweetener World Tour in 2019, alongside T-Mobile. In March 2019, she partnered with Starbucks for the launch of the Cloud Macchiato beverage.[403] In May 2019, Grande was announced as the face of Givenchy's Fall-Winter campaign.[404] The campaign began in July and generated $25.13 million in media impact value.[405] Beats, Samsung, Fiat, Reebok, and Guess products have been featured in Grande's music videos.[406] She has appeared in commercials for Macy's, T-Mobile, and Apple, as well as for her own fragrances.[407] Since 2019, Grande was among the ten of the highest paid individuals on Instagram. In 2023, Grande earns $1.6 million per sponsored Instagram post.[408]
Fragrances
Grande has released thirteen fragrances with Luxe Brands. She launched her debut fragrance, Ari by Ariana Grande, in 2015. In the wake of its success, she launched her third fragrance, Sweet Like Candy, in 2016.[409] Her fifth fragrance, Moonlight, was released in 2017, followed by Cloud (2018), Thank U, Next (2019), R.E.M. (2020), and God Is A Woman (2021), which was later expanded to a body care line.[410] She then released the duo fragrance collection Mod Vanilla and Mod Blush (2022).[411] The line also includes the limited editions Frankie (2016), Sweet Like Candy Limited Edition (2017), Thank U, Next 2.0, Cloud Intense (both 2021), and Cloud Pink (2023). The fragrances won the FiFi Award multiple times, most recently with R.E.M. in 2021. In 2022, it was reported that Cloud was the best-selling fragrance at Ulta, selling one bottle every eleven minutes.[412] Grande's fragrance line is the most-searched celebrity offering, with 4.4 million searches across Google and social media platforms per year.[413] Since its launch in 2015, the franchise has made $1 billion in retail sales globally.[414][415]
Studio albums
