Updated

Updated · Hollywood Reporter · Jun 15

Ariana Grande Cries During 2nd Los Angeles Show as 2019 Tour Return Draws Roaring Crowd

Updated

Updated · Hollywood Reporter · Jun 15

Ariana Grande Cries During 2nd Los Angeles Show as 2019 Tour Return Draws Roaring Crowd

Q: Is Ariana Grande's new album a critique of the very fanbase that brought her fame?

Not exactly. “Eternal Sunshine” is better understood as a rebuttal to scrutiny and a defense of Ariana Grande’s autonomy than as a direct attack on the fans who made her famous. The album and tour repeatedly push back on outside commentary. In “Yes, And?” Grande dismisses tabloid chatter and policing of her body, and in the title track she emphasizes, “I don’t care what people say is true.” Onstage, the memory-erasure imagery and her decision to reject it frame the project around living with pain, public judgment and trauma rather than trying to erase them. That said, the broader material around this era does suggest a more complicated relationship with fandom. Reporting tied to the tour notes that Grande has regretted letting fan expectations shape her choices in the past, particularly around “Positions.” Her newer song “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” from the next album “Petal,” goes further by questioning whether she owes anything for devotion “given of your own accord.” Critics have read that as a rare challenge to parasocial fan culture and to over-investment by loyal listeners. So the sharper critique is not really on “Eternal Sunshine” itself. That album is mainly about reclaiming her narrative after grief, trauma and public controversy. But the current phase of Grande’s work, especially the material previewed after it, does indicate she is reassessing the bargain between pop star and fanbase, and setting firmer boundaries around it.

3 articles · Updated · Hollywood Reporter · Jun 15

90 minutes into Sunday’s second of four Los Angeles dates, Ariana Grande stopped at Crypto.com Arena, wiped away tears and told fans she had “never in my life experienced a crowd like this.”
The reaction came as the audience answered her remarks with sustained cheers, leaving Grande calling the moment “overwhelming” and thanking fans for being a “loving, safe presence” through the years.
The Eternal Sunshine Tour is Grande’s first since 2019, returning her to the stage after years focused on Wicked and ahead of her eighth album, Petals, due July 31.
The show folded the emotional pause back into a career-spanning setlist that included “thank u, next,” “7 rings” and “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” her 10th Hot 100 No. 1.