ALBAWABA - Ariana Grande gets emotional during Chicago show.
Ariana Grande gave a four-minute statement to over 20,000 of her fans in Chicago on Monday night, amid claims that she is pulling away from the spotlight due to online scrutiny.
During the first of three sold-out shows at Chicago's United Centre, the "Break Free" singer paused the performance to address widespread rumors around her weekend announcement that she would be leaving the public spotlight when her Eternal Sunshine tour ends on September 1.
Ariana Grande read the prepared statement from her phone, assuring the audience she didn't want to be frightened and forget.
“Sometimes when a story comes out that’s not directly from me, things can get a little blown out of proportion,” she said. “So I just wanted to speak to my fans directly tonight because I love you so much.
“So basically, the announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing. It is something that I had decided. It’s a plan that I had quietly made a long time ago, and it’s a decision that was made from a thoughtful and empowered place, and I want you to know that many, many things can be true at the same time. I want to share this because I heard that my fans were worried that negativity was ruining things for me, but I just have to say that could not be more the f— opposite.
“This is not what that is, and I just want to make that very, very clear. Nothing can be ruined. Multiple things can be true at the same time. Boundaries can need to be set. Human beings can need a break sometimes. And also, this can be and will continue to be the greatest experience of my professional and creative life.
“I have one more thing to say,” she continued. “No matter what noises exist out there, nothing will ever be able to distort my reality or be more real to me, or louder to me, than this love that we share, or than how it feels to make art with the people that I love and respect. Absolutely nothing will alter or distort that for me. And I want you to know that. I love you, and this is what I'll always take and carry with me because the rest of that s— isn't mine to carry; therefore, I don't. I needed to get up here and separate it from my truth for you all, because I love you, and this tour has been the most healing, wonderful, correcting, magnificent, and unique experience, as has releasing [the album] "Petal". It has been extraordinary.
“I wish that words were enough to articulate just how much I love you all.”
In a statement distributed to numerous sources on Sunday, Grande's representative revealed her planned hiatus.
The statement came on the same day that the Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated diva announced her departure from Stephen Sondheim's West End revival of "Sunday in the Park With George," in which she was scheduled to perform with Jonathan Bailey next summer.
Ariana Grande “looks forward to finishing [her current] tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily,” the statement said.
Grande will then take “a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny.”
The statement came following the Friday release of Grande's eighth studio album, "Petal", and the accompanying music video for the title track, in which the pop star kills a panel of her critics with a chainsaw. In response to the video, supporters and detractors alike swarmed the comments area with criticisms of Grande's appearance and apparent weight loss.
The Times’ pop music critic Mikael Wood wrote of the album, “[T]he pop superstar opens the spigot on what she’s described as a ‘unfiltered rage’ to blast any number of feckless exes, a prying public obsessed with her body and her personal life — and not least herself for allowing anyone the power to hurt her in the first place.”
