On Sunday, Ariana Grande’s team announced that Ari would be “taking a step back from visibility” once her tour ended on September 1st. The announcement seemed to be specifically related to the release of Ariana’s “Petal” music video late last week, because even Ariana’s biggest fans were openly expressing concerns about how emaciated she appeared within the video. Ariana’s weight has been a discussion online for months, but the “Petal” video felt like the point of no return, where absolutely no one could pretend that Ariana looked or seemed healthy. As for the statements from Ariana’s team… the message came with a strong streak of denial, as a “source” maintained that Ariana was strong enough to perform her concerts. Well, after last night’s concert in Chicago, Ariana made a statement:
The show must go on for Ariana Grande. The pop star, 33, returned to the stage for the next stop of the Eternal Sunshine Tour at the United Center in Chicago on Monday, Aug. 3 after her representative told PEOPLE over the weekend that she’s “taking a step back from visibility” once her current run of shows comes to an end in September.
Grande addressed the crowd with a written speech directly to her fans.
“The announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing. It is something that I had decided to plan,” Grande said, adding that she made the plan “quietly, a long time ago.”
She later told fans that it was not true that “negativity” was “ruining things for me.”
“No matter what noises exist out there, nothing will be able to distort my reality or be more real to me or not as real to me as this love that we share,” Grande told her audience.
As she ended her speech, Grande called her Eternal Sunshine Tour “one of the most healing, beautiful, correct and special experiences” of her life.
“That felt good,” she said before resuming the show. “I wish that words were enough to articulate how much I love you.”
My most generous read on this is that Ariana wanted to tell her fans that she wasn’t bothered by their concerns and online discussions. Like, is that it? She’s trying to tell her fans that she’s not mad at them for showing concern, and she’s trying to say that this break was always planned and it had nothing to do with the backlash to the “Petal” music video? I actually sort of believe her – while the “Petal” video was, as I said, the point of no return for her fans, it’s more than possible that Ariana and her team had already planned to take a big break post-tour, and that people around Ariana were already well aware of the issues she’s facing.
Screencaps courtesy of “Petal” music video, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Ariana Grande seen at the European Premiere of WICKED FOR GOOD on Monday 10 November 2025 at Cineworld Leicester Square, London. .,Image: 1051704165, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Julie Edwards/Avalon.Red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards/Avalon
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- Ariana Grande seen at the European Premiere of WICKED FOR GOOD on Monday 10 November 2025 at Cineworld Leicester Square, London. .,Image: 1051704202, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Julie Edwards/Avalon.Red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards/Avalon
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- Ariana Grande at the 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 11, 2026 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 1065245215, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Pictured: Ariana Grande , Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
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- Ariana Grande at the 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 11, 2026 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 1065245223, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Ariana Grande, Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
it’s interesting that she says it was planned for a long time, but she was scheduled to be in Sunday in the Park and it was just announced that she was dropping out.
to me it seems like her team is trying to do damage control. I’m hopeful that this break is actually her seeking treatment, and they just don’t want to say that because she’s been so adamant that she’s healthy and doesn’t want people to discuss her body while every single bone in her chest is prominent.
I hope she gets well, whether she’s dealing with an eating disorder or another illness, but I think it’s a shame they’re trying to convince the public there’s nothing to see here.
Yea that was not planned. Doing the play was part of her acting trajectory and she wouldn’t have pulled out otherwise. My take is that she can’t pull out of her tour or press for Frockers movie but she really really should.
The messaging and lack of honesty is bringing me back to early 2024 and whatever was going on with KP.
Damage control, but as long as the end result is that she seeks help and gets on a path towards recovery, who cares?
This is so personal and she doesn’t “owe” transparency to anyone.
I am not a fan of hers, meaning I don’t know much about her or her career, but you are absolutely correct. So many women fall apart in this business that we must all take a step back, give her space and time to heal because GF is going through something. I don’t know what it is (IG is a rabbit hole about it) but I hope she gets the help she needs mentally and physically.
Transparency, no, but honesty, yes. Lying is the opposite of that.
As this Ariana situation goes on, I have to admit I’m losing sympathy. She needs to get well, whether that’s due to an ED or another illness which is causing her to lose weight to an unhealthy degree. Her team need to be aware of the impact that she is having on her fans, e.g. pro-Ana forums, populated by young girls, using her image as ‘thinspo’. They also need to stop gaslighting the fans by saying how healthy she is, when clearly she is not healthy. If she is surrounded by Yes-people, which her team are starting to sound like, then this is also a problem. But I’m getting a bit tired of the victim role that she always falls into. She’s tiny and fragile and needs help all the time. When is she going to take responsibility for anything? Sorry, I’m definitely not being entirely fair, but I think there needs to be some push back on this narrative.
That is a bit unfair. EDs are extremly complex and involve a high dosage if denial. You can’t blame her for that and you can’t blame her for being frail. How can she help being tiny and fragile?
It is unfair. It is also important to call out that she inspiring young women to be thinner rather than healthy. And EDs don’t see their illness as an illness. That was a point I made yesterday when I mentioned Karen Carpenter, and that other commenters were trying to make, but Kaiser deleted out comments. Denial is huge when it comes to eating disorders, and I think that Arianna is approving what her team says about her. She doesn’t want to be a victim, and neither did Karen Carpenter. And that denial is harmful to display from a public figure.
When Karen Carpenter died, I was in elementary school. I worshipped her. Me, a chunky kid growing up in a run down neighborhood. She had a voice that brought me to tears. When she died, it wasn’t revealed that it was because of anorexia. When it was revealed many years later, it was heartbreaking. Carpenter kept working under pressure from her team and brother. She worked until she was near death and then couldn’t survive. A lot of fans speculated that it was cancer because of how she looked. Only families that experiences ED could understand that it might be and eating disorder. Arianna has the same pressures, but she is far more powerful than Karen Carpenter was, even though Karen was the magic of The Carpenters, and I think that Arianna’s people are not controlling her. I think she feels more comfortable working that sitting with herself. Jennifer Lopez also couldn’t handle being alone with herself, but she doesn’t have a life threatening illness.
Wasn’t she supposed to be in a play after the tour? And in her announcement it was said she will be replaced.
She was supposed be on the West End next summer. So perhaps she was always planning to take a break but it wasn’t going to be so soon as it is now.
The show still has her listed along with Jonathan Bailey, so it is just not true that this was always planned because they need to replace her and it wouldn’t have been kept quiet “for a while”.
It is clear she needs help and her team isn’t handling this well for her.
I am not a fan of hers, though I think she has a lovely singing voice. She used to play this very annoying character on two different Nickelodeon shows. This is not her natural weight (some people are just naturally thin she is not one of them – see also Brittany Murphy in Clueless). She is alarmingly thin I say that not to body shame, but I’m glad someone sounded the alarm here. She is veering into dangerous territory.
It’s heartbreaking what the entertainment industry does to people. Her family/friends/fans should be concerned. At the same time, she doesn’t really owe anyone an explanation. People step out of the limelight all the time – it’s exhausting (my understanding) always having to be “on” having zero privacy, the concerts and promotions etc. And for women it’s dangerous – stalkers, deranged fans, etc. Not to mention, the pressure to stay young and be abnormally thin.
I know she is well paid but you could not pay me enough money to have this kind of pressure.
She was on Nickelodeon and there was the whole Dan Schneider thing going on and while we know Amanda Byrnes was victimized, it could be possible that she was victimized as well.
I don’t know what’s going on.
But there seems to be a huge denial from everyone involved.
And people around her have all the interest in keeping her on stage.
Being a celebrity sucks.
Yes, it has shades of Britney and Michael Jackson. But the fact that they canceled her obligations into the next year seems to indicate that they understand the seriousness of whatever is going on with her. I am optimistic that the tone of the communications is a deflection (to protect her career) and not actual denial.
I just visited my 96 year old mom and all the bones in her chest are showing now too, but she’s elderly.
Anorexia is an insidious disease from which there might be recovery but there is no cure. My daughter was down to 89 pounds and still considered herself fat. She refused inpatient, so thanks to my X’s 401K we put her in intensive therapy, five days a week. It stopped the free-fall but to her dying day (not from anorexia) she refused to weigh herself, constantly teetered on the brink and joked half-seriously about bulimics having no self-control. I totally believe that Arianna might be genuinely angered by fans’ reaction.
I’m so sorry Dylan.
I don’t believe this. Just glad she’s stopped for awhile to work on getting in a better place both physically and mentally.
You can speculate, project, commiserate, or sympathise, but no one can ever know what another individual is feeling except that individual. All I know, is that I wish her well. All I know for sure is that I wish her well.