Ariana Grande has released a new music video for her song Petal that has drawn concern from fans over her noticeably thin frame, arriving as the singer steps back from public life following what she described as 'endless, ongoing public scrutiny.'
The video follows an aspiring performer named Pepper, who undergoes a string of personality and image overhauls in response to negative feedback from casting bosses. After a series of failed auditions, Pepper snaps and kills the bosses with a chainsaw after they brand her 'inauthentic' and claim they preferred her as she was at the start. In a twist, it is then revealed that Pepper is in fact a famous movie star who was filming the story of an actress driven to madness by rejection and criticism.
Grande, a self-confessed horror film fanatic, packed the video with references to films and characters centred on women pushed to breaking point by impossible standards.
Hollywood Star and 'The Substance' References
Petal opens on a blank star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that has cracked slightly, allowing a single daisy to grow. With each failed audition, the flower begins to wilt, until the end of the video, when Pepper leaves the studios as an accomplished actress and the flower is restored to full health.
The scene mirrors The Substance, in which Demi Moore plays ageing actress Elisabeth Sparkle, who injects herself with a cell-replicating substance to create a younger version of herself after being shut out of Hollywood. Elisabeth's star becomes dirtier and disregarded as time passes, in a metaphor for her fading career.
There is a second nod to The Substance in Petal, when Pepper responds to a casting advert in her bid to break into Hollywood, much like when Elisabeth's alter-ego Sue responds to an advert seeking 'the next Elisabeth Sparkle.'
The cruel casting bosses in Petal also resemble the ruthless agent Harvey, played by Dennis Quaid, in the body horror film.
Grande on Beauty Standards
Grande has not commented publicly on The Substance, but she has spoken at length about the pressure around image in Hollywood. She told Vogue in 2023: "Being exposed to so many voices at a young age, and especially when people have things to say about your appearance at a young age, it's really hard to know what's worth hearing or not. When you're 17, you don't really know that yet."
Grande went on to admit she'd had a "ton" of lip filler and Botox over the years, becoming emotional as she recalled: "I stopped in 2018 because I felt too much. I just felt like hiding, you know? Didn't expect to get emotional. For a long time, beauty was about hiding for me, and now I feel like maybe it's not. Ever since I stopped getting fillers and Botox, I know for me, it was just like, 'Oh, I just want to see my well-earned cry lines and smile lines.'"
"I hope my smile lines get deeper and deeper and I laugh more and more," she continued. "Ageing can be such a beautiful thing. Now, might I get a facelift in 10 years? Might, yeah! These are just thoughts that I feel like we should be able to discuss when we're talking about beauty secrets. F*** it, let's lay it all out there."
Pepper's 'Grease' Transformation
At the start of Petal, Pepper arrives for her audition in a modest yellow top and white midi skirt, reminiscent of Olivia Newton-John's first look as Sandy in Grease.
After being told she's "homely, boring and nothing special," Pepper transforms into 'sexy Sandy,' channelling the character's bad-girl makeover in a black Bardot top and skintight trousers. In Grease, Sandy chose to change her image despite Danny insisting he would ditch his biker persona and become a jock to be with her, a plot point many fans have long called sexist. The criticism gained fresh momentum in the wake of the #MeToo movement, with many arguing Sandy should never have felt pressure to abandon her 'girl-next-door' look. Newton-John later pushed back on the claims, saying: "It's a movie. It's a story from the 50s where things were different."
Homages to Pearl, Carrie and Kill Bill
Petal appears heavily influenced by Pearl, which stars Mia Goth as a young woman on the brink of madness who pursues stardom to escape the drudgery, isolation and lovelessness of life on her parents' farm. In Pearl, the title character tries in vain to become a star before giving in to her murderous tendencies and going on a killing spree.
Several scenes in Petal mirror Pearl, including lines of young women waiting to audition, the manic eyes of a performer desperate to please, and the killing scenes themselves. The death scene also pays tribute to Kill Bill, echoing Uma Thurman's antiheroine The Bride.
As Pepper emerges covered in blood, there is a striking resemblance to Sissy Spacek in 1976's Carrie, a teenager driven to murder after being mercilessly bullied by her peers and abused by her mother. Grande has previously said Carrie influenced a sketch she starred in on Saturday Night Live earlier this year, which reimagined Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone with Kevin pulling off murderous pranks rather than playful ones. SNL film unit director Mike Diva revealed Grande told him: "I want as much blood as possible. I wanna look like Carrie at the end of this thing!"
Grande on Writing From 'Unfiltered Rage'
Grande has said Petal allowed her to tap into her "unfiltered rage." She told Apple Music: "It pulls from many different parts of myself and yet, at the same time, it is very experimental and different for me. I wrote from a place that I don't usually, which was like an unfiltered rage that I think we all feel sometimes. I usually am too shy to tap into that. This time, I didn't filter as much as I usually do. I usually do a lot of rewrites and make things a little kinder. This time, I didn't."
She also described Petal as "full of life" and "growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging," adding: "It's a little feral. It's definitely from a place I've been maybe too shy or polite to tap into before. This kind of just feels like, 'F**k it.'"
