Ariana Grande says Mac Miller helped her discover herself — brown hair and all.
The “Depraved” star, 32, opened up concerning the late rapper’s affect on her profession throughout a December look at Chapman College for The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, which aired this week.
She made uncommon feedback about her ex-boyfriend, revealing for the primary time that Miller inspired her to reclaim her pure brunette coloration and R&B sound as she transitioned from her Nickelodeon days.
“I’ve by no means talked about this, however truly Malcolm, who you would possibly know as Mac, inspired me to be myself,” Grande shared. He reassured her “that it was okay to type of shed that character and embrace my brown hair and make R&B-influenced pop music and separate and do the courageous factor.”
Grande and Miller first collaborated on her breakout 2013 single “The Approach” from her debut album “Yours Actually,” which was launched in August 2013. The pair didn’t go public with their romance till September 2016, three years after their musical partnership started, however she felt Miller’s affect from the start.
“That’s additionally part of why I used to be so desperate to ask him to be part of it,” the Grammy winner defined. “Not solely as a result of he was so excellent for the music, however I additionally felt like I had him to thank for locating my sound.”
The couple dated till Could 2018, splitting amicably earlier than Miller’s loss of life from an unintentional overdose in September 2018 at age 26.
Grande started dyeing her hair pink in 2009 for her position as Cat Valentine on Nickelodeon’s “Victorious,” and maintained the colour by way of the 2014 cancellation of spinoff “Sam & Cat.” Through the last years, she break up her time between filming in the course of the week and performing music on weekends.
“I feel there was undoubtedly a time when it was onerous to do [acting and music] on the identical time,” Grande recalled. She would tone her hair brown on Friday nights after wrapping filming, then do a clarifying rinse late Sunday to revive the pink for Monday morning name instances at 6 a.m.
“That utterly destroyed my hair,” Grande wrote in a now-deleted Instagram submit in 2014, explaining why she at all times wore her signature ponytail.
The singer has since embraced her pure brunette shade, exhibiting off a wealthy, heat dye job in October after spending three years blond for her “Depraved” position. She instructed the Zach Sang present in 2020 that the pink hair represented Cat Valentine, a personality she loves however is “not me.”
