Fans of Ariana Grande have discovered a disturbing hidden message in her new music video for "Petal," released Friday, which shows the 33-year-old singer looking noticeably thin.
Amid the reaction to her appearance in the clip, Grande announced plans to step back from public life once her current tour ends. As fans kept analyzing the video over the weekend, they found a message about weight loss buried in one of the scenes.
In the video, Grande plays Pepper, an aspiring 1960s starlet who repeatedly auditions in front of a panel of older white men trying to become famous. She is rejected again and again despite returning with different looks and styles to try to impress them.
The hidden note about her weight
At one point in the video, the panel of Old Hollywood men call Grande "unmarketable," "unattractive" and "inauthentic," and accuse her of having a personality disorder. One tells her they miss the old her and suggests she go find that version of herself and come back to try again.
While that scene plays out openly, sharp-eyed fans noticed one of the men also scribbles a private note calling her "boring on the eyes, a little homely" and saying it couldn't hurt for her to lose a few pounds.
The video ends with Grande dismembering the men with a chainsaw before receiving a standing ovation from the other female auditionees. The visual is meant as commentary on the scrutiny Grande has faced from the public and media throughout her career, though it has still divided fans given recent speculation about her health.
One fan wrote that the scene confirmed for them that Grande "is not in fact okay," while another said anyone who didn't understand the social commentary being shown "isn't very smart." A third fan wrote that women deserve better than being told things like that, and others pointed to her slender figure, with one saying her "bones are popping out" in the video.
Grande announces a step back from public life
Grande has confirmed she is retreating from the spotlight once her Eternal Sunshine tour wraps up on September 1, in a bid to avoid further scrutiny. Her representative told Variety that Grande will be taking a step back from visibility after completing the tour.
The representative said Grande looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, before taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances that has led to ongoing public scrutiny. The representative added that the tour has been a beautiful experience for Grande, who loves her fans and has loved every minute of it.
Grande released her eighth studio album, "Petal," on Friday. It was preceded by the lead single "Hate That I Made You Love Me," which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Grande's past comments on her weight
Grande has addressed her weight multiple times over the years and has maintained that she is healthy despite ongoing speculation about her frame. In a 2024 interview with YouTuber Sally, she said there's a comfortability people have commenting on it that she thinks is really dangerous.
She said she has essentially been a "specimen in a petri dish" in front of the public since she was 16 or 17 and has heard every version of what's supposedly wrong with her. She said that once one thing is "fixed," it becomes wrong for different reasons, extending even to something as simple as appearance. She added that society has a comfortability with commenting on others' looks, appearance and health that it shouldn't have at all.
In a 2023 TikTok, Grande addressed concerns about her weight directly, explaining that older photos of her, taken when she wasn't as thin, were actually from an unhealthy period in her life.
She said she was on a lot of antidepressants at the time, drinking while taking them, eating poorly, and at the lowest point of her life when she looked the way people considered her "healthy," which in fact wasn't. She said she felt an openness and vulnerability about it might do some good, and that healthy can look different for different people.
Megyn Kelly's earlier comments
Last December, conservative commentator Megyn Kelly said Grande was "very clearly anorexic." Kelly said that if Grande weighs 90 pounds, "it's a lot," and that she looks like she could be snapped in two.
