Ariana Grande's Meltdown, Explained

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**Tim Rice** (0:59)
Hello, I'm Tim Rice, and welcome to another episode of Behind the Story. We're going to do things a little bit differently today, switch things up, and instead of talking to one of our intrepid reporters about one of their recent scoops, we're going to talk to one of our intrepid editors about what is going on in the world of pop culture. My guest today is my friend, my colleague, Daily Wire Upstream editor, Madeleine Fry Schultz. Maddie, thank you so much for joining me.

**Madeleine Fry Schultz** (1:26)
Thanks for having me on. I'm excited.

**Tim Rice** (1:27)
So we've got a lot to talk about because the only thing crazier, I think, than political news these days is pop culture news, celebrities, things of that nature. But I want to start with, you know, this is, of course, we have to talk about a story at some point. So I want to talk about one of your recent pieces, which was headlined, Ariana Grande is wasting away and still blaming you for noticing.
So for those of our listeners who might not be familiar or not fully up to speed with the latest Ariana Grande drama, tell us what's going on. What's going on with Ariana?

**Madeleine Fry Schultz** (2:02)
Yeah. Well, I don't blame anyone for not being up to speed on the latest Ariana Grande drama. It's not normally the kind of thing that you should have to pay attention to. But I do think this is a really interesting story. So she is this big pop singer. She started her career with Nickelodeon. It's kind of similar to a lot of these Disney stars like Miley Cyrus, who were child stars and had a lot of struggles later in life, kind of gone off the rails. So she has been very, very skinny for the past few years. If anyone listening has seen the Wicked films, she started as Glinda and on the press tour, was already generating this kind of conversation that she looked like she was absolutely wasting away, very, very skinny and to an unhealthy extent. This conversation has come back up again because she is touring right now. She just released a new single, a song called Petal.
Basically, in the music video, she is critiquing fans and the media for commenting on her way in the most unhinged way. So the story in the music video is that she goes to this casting call, she goes and there are all these guys behind a desk, and she shows up and they say that she's too skinny, which is crazy, crazy for her to pretend that that's been a comment.
Maybe I'm not saying she hasn't gotten that comment. I think Hollywood's an insane place. But it's as if she's blaming people for what clearly looks like an eating disorder. So she goes up, they say, you're too skinny. She comes back, she looks like Sandy from Grease, then they say she is not sexy enough, and then she leaves, and then she comes back reinventing herself again, and then they still don't like her, and so then finally she just picks up a chainsaw and then she chops up all their heads. This is the end of the music video.
Very interesting, very stylized, very strange story. But basically, the gist of it is that she is trying to blame her fans, she's trying to blame the media for making her the way that she is, and also saying this is not something that you should comment on. And she said this in commentary before, even going, I think, three years back, she made a video on TikTok where she said, please don't comment on people's weight, it's none of your business. And I think that there are in other scenarios, there's an extent to which this is true. We love to comment on celebrities' bodies and their weight loss and their weight gain. But this is an instance where she looks genuinely unhealthy to the extent that she could have a heart attack on stage. She does not seem like she has the energy to be doing anything, let alone touring. And I think that it's important for people in the media and people who are commenting and her fans to call this out because there are a lot of young girls who look up to her. There are girls who are putting photos of her right now in pro-anorexia spaces online who are saying, she looks really beautiful, this is how I want to look. And if you see photos of her, her rib cage is visible. If you see photos of her back, you can see her entire spine. It's just very obviously unhealthy. And I don't think that it's something that we should be afraid to comment on, even though Ariana Grande doesn't seem to agree.