Her name "Ariana" was inspired by Princess Oriana from the 1988 animated movie, Felix the Cat.
Ariana got her start in kids TV. Nickelodeon first cast her as Cat Valentine in Victorious in 2010. She proved so popular that the tween sitcom Sam & Cat was created around her and iCarly actress Jennette McCurdy (Sam Puckett).
Ariana is allergic to cats, which is ironic as her character on Victorious loved them. She is also allergic to bananas.
Her first single, "
The Way," topped the iTunes chart within seven hours after being released on March 26, 2013. The song also debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at #10.
Ariana was still filming Sam & Cat when she was recording her debut album. She told the Guardian about her punishing daily schedule. "When I was making the album, I would start [filming] Sam & Cat at 6.30 in the morning and finish at 8.30[pm], then go to the studio till midnight and get home at 1am."
Talking about her influences during the making of her debut album, Ariana namechecked female singers past and present. "My biggest inspirations have been Imogen Heap, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Fergie," she explained to Digital Spy. "'
Clumsy' by Fergie is always one that I love to listen to when I need inspiration."
Her fan army are called "Arianators."
Ariana first met Nathan Sykes of The Wanted when he was asked by Scooter Braun, who manages both acts, to partner her on the album duet "
Almost Is Never Enough." The pair subsequently dated for five months.
Her song "
Problem" reached #1 on the iTunes singles chart in just 37 minutes after release - the fastest ever.
Ariana Grande is a vegan. "I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding," she told the Daily Mirror. "But I am a firm believer in eating a full plant-based, whole food diet that can expand your life length and make you an all-round happier person. It is tricky dining out, but I just stick to what I know 'veggies, fruit and salad,' then when I get home I'll have something else."
Grande's parents separated when she was around 8 or 9 years old. "That was very hard as a young girl when my parents got divorced," she told UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2014. "Being in the middle of it was so stressful. And of course being made up of both of them - I was like, 'Hey, if they both dislike each other's attributes so much, what am I to like about me? I'm made from these two people and I'm caught in the middle of all this fighting.' It was traumatic."
Asked by You magazine what her favorite Instagram feed is, Grande replied; "People may be surprised to know that it's @nasa – I am a science nerd and the images they post are amazing."
Grande wears a ponytail most of the time as a result of four years of bleaching treatments when she played the red-haired Cat. The constant dyeing when filming Victorious and Sam & Cat destroyed Grande's tresses. She explained on Instagram: "I wear extensions but I wear it in a ponytail because my actual hair is so broken that it looks absolutely ratchet and absurd when I let it down."
Grande's
concert at the Manchester Arena in England, on May 22, 2017, was turned into a massacre when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive in the foyer of the arena, causing 23 fatalities and hundreds of injuries. The singer suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the attack, but was on stage within a fortnight to headline a televised benefit concert, One Love Manchester, which raised $23 million to aid the bombing victims and affected families. To recognize Grande's efforts, the City Council named her the first honorary citizen of Manchester.
Ariana Grande's tweet after the Manchester suicide bombing - "broken, I am so sorry. I don't have words" - briefly became the most liked tweet in history.
Ariana Grande started dating
Saturday Night Live cast member Pete Davidson in May 2018, shortly after she'd finished her previous relationship with the rapper Mac Miller. They quickly got engaged the following month and Grande even
named a song on her
Sweetener album after her fiancée. Sadly, things went from sweet to sour and the pair split up over the October 13-14, 2018 weekend, having realized their relationship wasn't taking off.
The first fan hit by a puck at the Florida Panthers' current arena was a 5-year-old Ariana Grande. She was actually hit twice at the first regular season game ever played at the BB&T Center back in 1998: once in the right wrist by a wayward Gord Murphy shot and again by a puck fired by an unidentified Tampa Bay player.
Ariana Grande is the first ever solo artist to simultaneously earn the first three positions on the Hot 100. When "
7 Rings" topped the chart dated February 23, 2019, it was followed by "
Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored" at #2 and "
Thank U, Next" at #3.
The Beatles are the only other act to simultaneously hold the first three positions of the Hot 100, achieving the feat during five different weeks in March and April 1964.
Her mother Joan Grande is the CEO of the telephone and alarm system Hose-McCann Communications. Founded in Brooklyn, New York in 1923, Hose-McCann innovated and developed the first reliable sound-powered communication system for marine use. It was adopted by the US Military and proved to be virtually indestructible. In 1994, this telephone system was found aboard the World War II Liberty Ship the SS Brown in perfect working order.
Grande attended Pine Crest School, a private preparatory school with campuses in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton. She was actually turned away by the teacher who ran her school's choir club: Pine Crest's Cool Cats Choir.
Ariana Grande married real estate mogul Dalton Gomez at her home in Montecito, California, on May 15, 2021. The pair exchanged vows at an informal gathering with just a few guests over the weekend. Grande and Gomez first dated in early 2020 and spent much of the coronavirus pandemic self-isolating together before getting engaged at the end of the year.
On July 17, 2023, it was announced that Grande and Gomez had separated after two years of marriage.
In 2025 Ariana Grande made a 26-minute film called
Brighter Days Ahead that won the MTV Video Music Award for Video Of The Year. In the film, Grande reprises her role as Peaches, a woman who has painful memories erased in the "
We Can't Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)" video. Now it's 70 years later and Peaches is allowed to revisit the happy parts of those memories, but just once, and then they're gone forever. The story is based on the 2004 movie
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
