Ariana Grande admits her passion for making and performing music came under strain during her stint with intense fame early in her career.
Her extreme popularity caused her emotional burnout and stress. However, when she played Glinda in the Wicked franchise, everything changed.
“I feel really grateful and excited about it in a way that feels so different to me,” she acknowledges in Interview Magazine. “I’ve just been healing my relationship to music and touring over the past couple of years.”
Before it was healed, Ariana explains she spent a lot of time “undoing her system” regarding her approach to making music.
“I think the time away from [music] helped me reclaim certain pieces of it and put certain feelings that maybe belonged to my relationship to fame."
"Or the things that come with being an artist, in a box somewhere else, and say, ‘OK. I don’t have to let go of this thing that I love."
The pop icon then credits her Glinda role for this repairing of the bridge toward making music. "I can just put those things over here, and not lose sight of my gifts."
"So I’ve just been taking baby steps towards healing my relationship to music and touring, and I think my time with Glinda and with acting really helped me build the strength to be able to do that," she continues.
And it worked. Ariana's past traumas wash away, giving her a newfound passion for music.
"But I can’t express how grateful I am. I think it just held some traumas for me before, and I feel those dissipating, and that is such an extraordinarily beautiful thing," she concludes.