Ariana Grande has hinted she became “tired” of being a pop star.
The 31-year-old singer shot to fame as a teenager on the Nickelodeon sitcom ‘Victorious’ before going onto a massively successful music career with seven studio albums but after making her transition into film, admitted that even though she was putting her own life into her songwriting, she found it laborious after a while.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: “At a certain point, you get tired of that [pop star] character, because it is a character.
“There are pieces of you and your story that are woven throughout your songwriting, but then, because of the way it travels and becomes sensationalised, it gets away from you. And beneath all of it is just a girl from Boca who loves art, and I think that’s why it’s been such a deeply healing gift to disappear into this character — to take off one mask and put on another.”
Ariana admitted that while some things from those early days will always be “painful” to her, she is aware that this is what she chose to do and she will “never” resent her own music for that.
She said: “It’ll never be unpainful. But also, I walk with the awareness that I’m an artist and this is a path that I’ve chosen, and so I just try to protect myself so that I never start to resent the art.”
Prior to finding fame on television, the ‘Into You’ hitmaker – who has been nominated for an Academy Award following her role as Glinda in the big-screen adaptation of Broadway hit ‘Wicked’ – appeared in ’13: The Musical’ on The Great White Way, and assumed then that her career would be theatre-based.
She said: “I really thought I’d be a Broadway girl forever.
“I mean, that was the dream: I’d be in New York City doing eight shows a week, and then maybe on the side I’d be able to do music, and some people would want to hear it.”