For a while there, the Ariana Grande stories were coming out every single day. Tales of her diva behavior, reports of her behind-the-scenes antics, and rumors of her general unpleasantness saturated the media in September. And then it kind of faded away a few weeks ago. I tend to think Ariana’s people – and it takes a village with this girl, trust me – finally managed to calm everything down. Ariana stopped giving interviews for a little while and someone managed to stop the PR bleed. Now Ariana’s people are probably hoping that they can rebrand her a little bit… possibly as a loving sister with an out-and-proud gay brother, Frankie Grande. Ariana talked about leaving Catholicism when her brother was told that God didn’t love him. Yikes. You can read Ariana’s full Telegraph interview here. Some highlights:
She hasn’t changed: “I’m still the same person I’ve been since I was four years old. Literally. Obviously, I’m a mature adult. But I’m still the same girl. I’m still Ariana from Boca who loves musical theatre, who loves her family, who loves the beach, who loves animals.”
Her gay brother: “When my brother was told that God didn’t love him I was like, “OK, that’s not cool.” They were building a Kabbalah centre in Florida so we both checked it out and really had a connection with it.” Kabbalah “sort of stuck with me. And since then my life has unfolded in a really beautiful way, and I think that it has a lot to do with the tools I’ve learnt through Kabbalah, I really do.”
Explaining the life lessons learned from Kabbalah: “You have to watch your intentions, make sure you’re not giving in to your ego. You have to numb your reactive state. You have the power to change your reality. You have to take a second and breathe and reassess how you want to approach or react to a situation or approach an obstacle, or deal with a negative person in your space. That takes a lot of self-control and practice and, I guess, willpower.”
She still believes in demons too: “Do I believe in demons? I believe in unexplained energies.”
Being a role model: “To me the idea of being a role model is just being yourself,’ she says. ‘And being unapologetically yourself, whatever that means. Whether that’s just me simply dressing sexier on some days and more conservatively on other days because that’s how I wake up feeling, I believe in authenticity.”
Rumors of diva ‘tude: “It’s funny how a certain amount of success comes with a certain amount of weird, inaccurate depictions of you,’ she says. ‘But I feel like it will die down because it’s not something that I pay into. And also things can only last so long when there’s little truth to them. So that’s why I don’t trip over it. It’s weird to me because I do see myself as a fairly positive, very friendly person. So it’s kind of odd. I also think a lot of people don’t know what the word “diva” means. If you want to call me a diva I’ll say, “Um, well, cool.” Barbra Streisand is a diva; that’s amazing. Celine Dion is a diva; thank you. But if you want to call me a bitch, that’s not accurate. Because it’s just not in my nature.”
Madonna always claimed that Kabbalah made her a better person too. I’m not so sure though. I mean, on a scale of secular humanism to Xenu, I think Kabbalah is relatively harmless. It’s a money-suck for celebrities but at least the religion isn’t being supported by slave labor and aliens. People are just buying red strings and learning how to “numb their reactive state” (eyeroll). But surely there’s a reason why so many moody divas are drawn to Kabbalah?
I hope Ariana never denies her old stories of demon encounters ever again! Her demon stories were the best. MOAR DEMON STORIES.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
Still “literally” a 4 year old.
This. At four you still think whining will get you what you want, tantrums are a daily occurrence (well, not daily), and you can be distracted by anything shiny. I hope she’s still not the same person she was at 4.
Yeah….she is.
Her make up looks like it was done by a 4-year-old. It’s terrible, always.
Except aren’t we all “literally” the same person we were at four? Unless a person has had something like a sex change operation or maybe a face transplant, you’re the same person, just older.
I think it may be the first time she used the word ‘literally’ correctly. But, I give her zero credit for it.
And I think it’s weird that she says that she is the same person she was when she was 4. Who was she from birth through her 4th birthday? Maybe she was a nicer person during those years…and she allowed either sides of her face to be photographed.
Good for her. Still annoying though.
Her brother is just as annoying
I admire her for how well she’s bounced back from all the cr-p she was getting in September. It must be really disappointing for those who tried to bring her down.
I don’t think anyone tried to “bring her down” career wise, but I think they were hoping to bring her supposed attitude down a few notches. Some pretty reputable sources confirmed her “diva antics” (if you will) so I don’t take them to be sheer rumors.
I think it was a combination of both. I believe some of it was DEFINITELY true, but that the media did also take it as an opportunity to exaggerate and spread gossip as usual.
Didn’t everybody hate her brother after his turn on some reality show? I mean, good for her for being a good sister, but if this is PR it might not work as well as she hopes.
Yeah. Michael D. at Dlisted covered some of the brother’s antics. Apparently, the guy is a raging asshat.
Fakie was in Big Brother season 16. he just got out of the house less than a month ago.
Everyone that watched the 24/7 livefeeds HATED him. But on CBS tv episodes, he got such a golden edit, it was unbelievable. i have so much to say about how awful and vile he is but ugh ..
I agree 100%. He was vile. He was every bad stereotype of a gay man. I felt like he thought if people didn’t like him it was because he was gay. being gay had nothing to do with it. He was a vile little troll.
CBS made me sick
She came off well here. You can choose whether or not to believe her, but nonetheless she came off well.
She also recently penned an endorsement deal with WA-TAH!, an enhanced bottled water company marketed to children in place of sugary energy drinks and sodas. It’ll be great for her image.
Good for her for supporting her brother. I can’t shade her for looking beyond Catholicism. I tried to reconnect with the Catholic church when my kids were little and I just couldn’t do it. But I know so many parents who are raising their kids in the Catholic faith not because they agree with much of anything about it but simply because it’s all they know. They are afraid of anything different and I think it’s sad and does a huge disservice to the next generation.
I am a practicing Catholic and I fully support gay rights. Maybe it was because of the way Catholicism was taught to me, but I went to Religion class for 12 years and we almost never talked about sin, we were mostly taught love and tolerance. The only time we talked about gay people our teacher said that being gay is not a sin and that they should be loved and respected just like everyone else. Most people I know think that way, and some priests I know even think Scripture was misinterpreted when it comes to homosexualism. We were also taught about Islam, Hinduisam, Judaism, etc and nI went to quite a few Masses where the Muslim Imam or an Othodox Patriarch were present.
Being Catholic is also a part of my national identity.
Catholicism in itself is not bad. Does it has some isues? Yes, but almost every religion does. Things are slowly changing and that is a good thing.
It’s hard though when the scripture explicitly states it is a sin…? That was just written by a bunch of old guys so shouldn’t really be followed very strictly. Religion should be about concepts rather than the written word. Love, sharing, acceptance etc.
I’m not a theologist, but what some of the priests were talking about was that Paul’s words in the New Testament were translated wrong.
Couldn’t agree with this comment more. Claiming “God hates gay people” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Catholicism. It feel like people have a predetermined notion of what Catholicism entails, and a lot of the time, they are misguided.
I went through Catholic school from preschool through a masters degree, and I will never forget a time when one of the boys in my high school class said, “that’s so gay” as an insult. In response, our teacher taught a lesson on tolerance and then explained to us the actual Catechism acknowledges homosexuality, and that being born gay isn’t a condemnation.
Like you said, of course there are issues with Catholicism, but there are issues with any and every religion.
@Charlie: What you are probably referring to is the debate over whether Paul was referring to. The actual meaning of the words Paul used is unclear. There is a serious debate over whether Paul was speaking about relations between two men very generally (which tends to be the conservative view) or whether Paul was talking about exploitative relationships like pederasty or prostitution. The problem with trying to take the Bible literally is that the translations vary based upon which version you read, so there is really no legit way to claim one is accurately following the Bible literally.
Charlie and Maude, I have to say your experience with Catholicism was markedly different from mine. The hallmarks of my eight years of formal religious ed were fear and intolerance and absolutely no exposure to any other faiths. Even other Christian denominations were dismissed. I was an incredibly anxious kid and my religious experience really exacerbated it.
As I said I was willing to give it another try for the sake of my kids but when we joined the church near our house and enrolled them in CCD, and while their teachers were sweet and well-meaning, the administration was a different story and within a year I could see a rigid intolerance creeping back in to the teachings. We switched to a UCC church and the difference was like night and day. The emphasis on social justice and acceptance was like nothing I’d ever experienced with Catholicism.
I agree with you. I left the church after many years of being devout. I absolutely believe that a cleric may have told her brother that. For what is worth, the catechism is actually much more charitable towards gay people than people generally for the church credit for. But yeah, I don’t blame her for leaving.
i can’t speak for cradle catholics but i have been a practicing roman catholic longer than this girl has been alive and have lived all over america. not once has there ever been a negative mention of gays. even at the extremely old school parish i attended that had a priest that often harped on the unborn. not a single mention.
as for biblical references against homosexuality, none are part of the 3 year or 2 year liturgical cycles.
i was raised agnostic but i became catholic as an adult because of the extreme tolerance, there was no yelling at the congregation that we were all sinners and going to hell, lots of focus on loving and forgiving, lots of opportunities for charitable works, etc. there are a lot of archaic “rules” about birth control (never stop god’s plan) but i’ve never attended a mass where this was even discussed and many western catholics do as they please and the church knows this and has no comment. certainly no hate in my experience.
the whole thing regarding covering up abuse, that’s where the church is failing in a major way. the changes are coming but too slowly.
I wasn’t raised Catholic, but in a Lutheran/Episcopal mash up. They too, focused on the love and tolerance. However, when I got to college, I realized that for me personally, I couldn’t pick and chose what to focus on. I couldn’t ignore that the book that contained the uplifting Jesus stories, also contained horrible parts about homosexuals. I had gay friends that were there for me during very dark times, and I could not believe in a God that thought my personal angels weren’t the wonderful souls that I knew them to be. I didn’t want to belong to a club that didn’t value my friends as members!
Logically, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that the book was supposed to be the word of God or inspired directly from God, yet there were so many areas that didn’t mesh with facts or how we understand the world in modern times (like the restriction on wearing mixed fabric, etc.).
There are plenty of Catholic churches that teach that homosexuality is a sin. I think her story is completely believable.
@Grant – there are no Catholic Churches, there is only one Catholic Church. We don’t have many denominations like the Protestants do. And while I don’t doubt that some priest told her that, that is not the teaching of the Catholic Church.
I’m a Catholic too, and I also support gay rights. I think she comes a bit religion ignorant with this.
There is a big misunderstanding about gay related things in the Bible. Jesus never spoke one word against gay people, his speeches were all about love. It was in fact Paul the one who said that “a man laying next to other man was wrong” (or something like that) and even that’s on debate of what he was referring to, because the context of his words in the original language might had refer to prostitution. Most of this controversial subjects (such as the marriage of certain people within the church, which wasn’t prohibited until the crusades) came to an agreement after the official councils. At the end, as a Catholic, I think what Jesus said was the most important, and he always maintained a love speech for everyone.
And about Kabbalah, a Jew friend told me that most of these celebrities aren’t really practicing Jewish mysticism, but a very light and easy version of it.
I wanted to quit Catholicsm at 6, because I was aware I was an atheist. Because it was important to my dad, I completed CCD and all that with a Confirmation, which …well, was pointless really.
My point being, there are good and bad people who believe in god and follow a religion. There are good and bad people who don’t, too. Religion and faith don’t make a person good; its their actions that do. Teach the kiddos the be good people, and let them sort out faith for themselves. 🙂
Absolutely. Thank you! 🙂
ITA with you.
Very well said, teatimeiscoming.
What is it with these people and “Literally”? Use it all the time, and never correctly.
+1 It’s one of my pet peeves. Especially when someone says “I’m literally dying!” (Yep, I’ve actually heard someone say that.) Oh really? You look alive to me.
My pet peeves are people who say “I could care less” and “nothink”.
I think “literally” is used in conversation when people are lying and trying to compensate and cover up…
Everyone hate her brother because he’s an a$$hole. And so she is.
I think she came off nice and very grounded in this interview. The hairstyle is driving me crazy. Please try something different if only for one day.
Yeah, I’d like to see her with a shorter haircut- either something Marilyn Monroe-esque or something similar to the bobs that Rihanna used to wear. It would be different and it would also make her look more like a 21-year-old woman.
Wow, her PR team is working overtime.
No one loves Frankie Grande.
Uh, I survived 16 years of Catholic education and I can guarantee that “God doesn’t love gays” is definitely not part of Catholic theology. Officially, the Vatican has a problem with homosexual relationships just as many other denominations and people in general do, although not all Catholics go along with that attitude. There are openly gay Catholics who are members of parishes and working to change attitudes. The Vatican doesn’t have any problem with celibate gays and lesbians etc., it’s the sex part that is objectionable to them (not the person). Ironic since there are priests in the closet, just as anywhere else. They’ll advance eventually, it just takes time. They used to have a lot of problems with divorce/remarriage, too, that’s fading away gradually (has changed a lot since my childhood).. The Vatican objects to many forms of contraception as potentially abortifacient, too, but Catholic families have been mysteriously shrinking over the past few decades anyway. Catholics follow their own conscience in such matters, the Vatican eventually catches up with the people. Once enough people want change, it happens.
This girl just ran into a jerk and obviously she doesn’t know much about her former religion if she thought believing that “God doesn’t love gays” was required. She was probably just ready to move away from her family religion and grabbed onto that as her motivation. The celebrity version of Kabbalah is trendy and comfy so she’s happier there. She doesn’t realize that if she had looked further, she could have found like-minded people among Catholics (including priests) also. Basing the decision on bad theology spouted by a bigot may not be the best reason to head to Kabbalah, which has its own oddities.
Wow…she really needs new hair and makeup people in her village. Isn’t she round about 20 years old? What is it with the caked on makeup? It’s a completely different shade than her arms. And that hair in the bottom pic?…Boom.
I guess I should be more concerned about what she’s saying, but somehow that irks me.
Her manager – the infamous Scooter Braun, also Bieber’s manager – is no doubt encouraging her to stay with the ‘Lolita’ look as it appeals to her audience … which seems to be largely made up of three-seven year olds and dirty old men! The ‘before and after’ photos of her (‘before’ meaning prior to the nose job and really bad make-up) are quite telling – she really was so pretty. I bet Jeanette McCurdy is laughing now though – and everyone thought SHE was the problem on ‘Sam and Cat’.
Call me a cynic, but I’ve never seen her photographed leaving a Kaballah temple (unlike Demi, Ashton, Madonna …). It just seems that a lot of these kids (and yes, she really is just a kid – she acts more like 14 than she does of her real age of 21) just say they practice Kaballah-ism (is that a word) because they think it’s trendy.
My goodness she has a LOT of makeup on in that last pic. I think I could I etch my name in her foundation, like a stick in sand. How can she stand wearing that much, it must be itchy. Although I think I am comparing it to halloween makeup, since it looks as heavy as halloween makeup
I think people can have different experiences with different religions. I was raised Catholic, attended many years of CCD, and was never once told anything about homosexuality being a sin. I have however, been to several different churches with friends who invite me and a lot of them have one thing in common, Catholic bashing. When I was 12 or so, I went to this Baptist church that was in my neighborhood, and could not believe it when they started going on a tangent for 1/2 an hour about Catholics being wrong and how they (Baptists) were so much better. That was the first time I had heard it, but have heard it many times throughout the years. I work at an assisted living home and last week, the guy that was there to sing and entertain the elderly folks, stopped singing, and started talking about Catholics and how wrong they were. Never mind that about 50% of the elderly that live there are Catholic. I had a guy at a different place I worked tell me I needed to get re-baptized because being baptized in the Catholic church (I was a baby) didn’t count. I actually identify as an atheist now, but it never fails to piss me off when I here someone bashing any other religion besides their own. And to be clear, I’m not talking about someone who actually has a bad experience with a religion (like Ariana), I’m talking about those a$$hats who have no clue as to what they are talking about and still feel the need to talk crap.
I hear you. My own mother in law, when she came into town for my son’s Catholic baptism, very mildly and sweetly said “I can’t believe my grandson is going to be a Catholic, we always scorned them for their ignorance when I was growing up.” I was like gee, thanks for the support.
There are many reasons to hate her brother – but being gay is not one.
I like Frankie,I rarely watch Big Brother but it was refreshing to see the intimate intereactions between him and the young straight guys.Most of the straight guys I know don’t feel comfortable around flamboyant g uys like Frankie.
Congrats to Frankie for new role on Broadway
Good for her. I personally believe that G-d loves everyone. It’s my opinion that only homophobes are the ignorant fools who believe this. Shame on all of them.
BOOOO I miss the daily Celebitchy coverage of her toddlerantics!!! That was such a fun month!
Why is she always making a face like she just farted and it ended up being louder & smellier than she expected?
Lol yes! Surprised disdain/disgust!
I don’t know much about Kabbalah, but if Ariana is happy, then I’m happy. To me, she just switched from one organized religious institution to another.
She is a child. I find no worth in her statements about faith, life or generally anything else. Definitely not if I need a pony tail.
She’s improvising with that statement… A LOT. I do believe that she was probably never very religious but somewhat respected it while growing up and then when she realised that some religions/religious people don’t accept the idea of anyone being gay… she thought of her brother and couldnt be a part of it. I get that.
However, I went to Catholic school and not once did I ever hear anything about God “not loving” this person or that person. We learned about ALL religions. We learned about ALL cultures. We learned about love and peace since those two things were the main message Jesus had. Im not a regular church attendee but when my husband was attending classes prior to being baptised, all I ever heard was love and respect for all from the mouths of the priest, the seminarians and the deacon. All of those age old questions about Catholics and gay, Catholics and women, Catholics and the burial of those who have committed suicide were all brought up and the message was one of unity.