‍

At one point, Ariana Grande seemed like the luckiest girl in the world, groomed for success from an early age and conquering the entertainment industry by her early twenties, but she would soon encounter more tragedy and heartbreak than most people deal with in a lifetime. The way she has rebounded from these trials and gone on to scale even greater heights in her career has provided countless fans with the inspiration to face their own challenges and turned her most scathing critics into unabashed admirers.

‍

A teen idol is born

Ariana was born in 1993 in Florida to a comfortable, middle-class family; her mother, Joan, ran a communications equipment company while her father owned a graphic design firm. They raised Ariana and her elder sister Judy to be independently minded from an early age; Joan recounts throwing a Jaws-themed party for Ariana’s fourth birthday: “Most of the kids were running, screaming, because I had Jaws playing on a huge screen... The parents were like, ‘Are you crazy? Our kids don’t watch that!’ But it was [Ariana’s] favorite movie!”

‍

‍

Young Ariana also loved music and acting. Her first lead role came when she was just eight years old, playing Annie in a community theater production, and she never looked back. Meanwhile, she was developing her tastes and learning how to make music, as she told Complex magazine in 2013: “I was listening to Whitney Houston all the time, The Bodyguard soundtrack, a lot of Judy Garland and oldies, and divas… I was just always writing growing up and making cute songs with GarageBand.” She quickly decided that she wanted to be a recording artist but it was acting that provided her early success and opened doors to recording studios; she was performing on Broadway by 15 and aged 17 she was one of the lead actors in Nickelodeon's hit teen comedy Victorious. By 2013, Ariana had realized her childhood ambitions as her debut album Yours Truly went to number one on the Billboard charts in its first week of release. Everything seemed to be going to plan for the teenaged star.

‍

‍

Becoming the trending topic

Ariana’s second album My Everything was released in 2014 and her growing celebrity was cemented by four Billboard Top 10 singles and collaborations with everyone from The Weeknd to Andrea Bocelli. She also continued to light up the small screen, with a long-running guest star role in the hit Fox slasher comedy Scream Queens, and she quickly became one of the biggest stars on social media, topping Twitter’s list of most talked about celebrities for 2015.

‍

‍

That level of fame also brings increased scrutiny and intrusion, and in 2015 Ariana had her first brush with controversy after leaked CCTV footage was released showing her licking a donut in a California bakery and then replacing it on the shelf while telling her boyfriend: “I hate America.” Although Ariana quickly apologized and explained that her comments were about the culture of unhealthy eating, rather than the country itself, the incident sparked a backlash large enough to lead to the cancellation of a scheduled appearance at the White House to perform for President Barack Obama. Ariana’s reputation had taken a knock and many critics leaped upon the opportunity to dismiss her as a stereotypical spoiled child star who, having never faced adversity herself, was unable to feel empathy for others. They would soon be proved emphatically wrong in the most tragic way imaginable. 

‍

The honorary Mancunian

On May 22, 2017, Ariana gave a performance at the Manchester Arena in England as part of her world tour to promote her album Dangerous Woman. After she closed her set and the audience was making their way toward the exits, a suicide bomber detonated a homemade device in the foyer that killed 22 people and injured more than 1,000, along with several hundred more people who suffered psychological trauma as a result of their experiences. 

‍

‍

Security at the venue managed to get Ariana and her band out of the building safely, but Ariana’s mother, Joan, was in the crowd that night and helped to usher concertgoers to safety backstage after the explosion. Ariana’s determination to help the victims personally meant that she returned to Manchester just 13 days later to headline a benefit concert for the victims that raised $23m for those affected by the attack. In the process, she earned the love and respect of the people of Manchester, who showed their gratitude by making her an honorary Mancunian two months later. It wasn’t just Mancunians who were grateful for her strength and compassion. The way in which Ariana recovered from her own trauma - she has subsequently been diagnosed with PTSD - to help other victims of the attack didn’t just demonstrate her remarkable resilience but also silenced her critics who had accused her of lacking empathy. 

‍

No tears left to cry?

Despite her defiant outlook, the consequences of the Manchester attack continued to resonate through Ariana’s personal life. A few months after the attack, she split up with her long-term boyfriend, rapper Mac Miller, and while the reason for the break up was never made public it has been hinted that Miller’s problems with substance abuse and addiction placed an irrevocable strain on their relationship. Soon after breaking up with Miller, Ariana began a very public whirlwind romance with Pete Davidson, announcing their engagement after barely a month together in June 2018. In September, tragedy struck again when Mac Miller died of an accidental drug overdose after unknowingly taking pills laced with the deadly drug fentanyl. By October, Ariana’s engagement with Davidson had been broken off. 

‍

‍

Dealing with such awful incidents would be difficult for anyone, and doing so in the glare of social media’s constant scrutiny can only magnify that difficulty, but by this stage Ariana had learned the importance of harnessing her own resilience and using it to demonstrate to others that they can also be strong in the face of adversity. She also turned her struggles into more hugely successful music, with the 2018 album Sweetener and lead single No Tears Left To Cry addressing her response to the Manchester bombing, and 2019’s Thank U, Next focusing on her response to her subsequent relationship troubles. These have only heightened her fame and critical success, with Thank U, Next named the best album of 2019 by Rolling Stone magazine. 

‍

The True Superhero of resilience

Ariana hasn’t just served as an inspirational figure to others experiencing heartbreak in their personal lives; she’s also provided a huge amount of financial support to those in need, including funding $5m worth of free therapy to fans in a collaboration with the mental health charity BetterHelp. She’s also been a vocal advocate for better mental health provisioning and has supported many other social causes both financially, and through direct advocacy to her hundreds of millions of followers on social media. That said, there is little doubt that for all the philanthropy and activism, it is Ariana’s consistent demonstration of her resilience in response to her own tragedies that has provided the most valuable inspiration for her countless fans and admirers. At this stage in her career, there are very few people left who do not count themselves as admirers of Ariana Grande. 

‍