Ariana Grande says acting has helped with “healing” her “relationship to music and touring”.
The 32-year-old pop star took on the two-part film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Wicked and its recently released sequel Wicked: For Good, and as she prepares to return to the stage next year for her Eternal Sunshine Tour in support of her fifth studio album, and she has opened up about how taking a step back helped her rebuild her connection to music.
Speaking to Nicole Kidman for Interview magazine, she said: “I feel really grateful and excited about it in a way that feels so different to me.
“I’ve just been healing my relationship to music and touring over the past couple of years.
“I spent a lot of time redoing my system when it comes to making music. With Eternal Sunshine, that felt like a very different experience for me.”
The Thank U, Next hitmaker went on to describe how time away from the industry helped her separate the pressures of fame from the joy of creating, adding that acting and her role as Glinda in Wicked gave her the strength to approach music with renewed perspective.
She said: “I think the time away from it helped me reclaim certain pieces of it and put certain feelings that maybe belonged to my relationship to fame, or the things that come with being an artist, in a box somewhere else, and say, ‘OK, I don’t have to let go of this thing that I love. I can just put those things over here, and not lose sight of my gifts.'”
Ariana continued: “I’ve just been taking baby steps towards healing my relationship to music and touring, and I think my time with Glinda and with acting really helped me build the strength to be able to do that. But I can’t express how grateful I am.
“I think it just held some traumas for me before, and I feel those dissipating, and that is such an extraordinarily beautiful thing.”
The Love Me Harder singer admitted that the sudden transition into pop stardom wasn’t without its challenges.
Reflecting on her whirlwind rise to superstardom, she said: “There was a tricky adjustment period in the very beginning, when my pop career took off the way that it did.
“And I hope this doesn’t sound ungrateful, but it’s just a big adjustment when your life changes in that very drastic way.”