Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
Eagle-eyed Ariana Grande fans have spotted a hidden message in her controversial Petal music video that references the pop star needing to lose weight.
The 33-year-old actress has been subject to intense commentary about her health after she appeared extremely thin in the music video for the title track of her eighth album.
Following the release of the album and while Grande is in the middle of her Eternal Sunshine tour, a representative for Grande told People on Sunday local time that she will be “taking a step back from visibility”.
“She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny,” the statement read.
“This tour has been a beautiful experience for her. She loves her fans and has loved every minute of this tour so much.”
It comes as fans spotted a hard-to-see detail in one of the scenes of the music video, which sees Grande play a woman named Pepper who is hoping to make it big in Hollywood but is “not good enough” according to male executives.
During one audition, one of the men scribbles down a note about Grande’s character needing to lose more weight.
“Boring on the eyes. A little homely. Couldn’t hurt to lose a few lbs,” the note read.
While the visual is intended to mirror Grande’s real-life experience with fame, fans have had their say about it in light of speculation around her health.
“This just confirmed for me that she is not in fact okay,” one fan said.
Another said: “Women deserve so much better than having to be told this kind of stuff.”
“I’d never want to be famous… and this is why,” a third added.
Another fan said: “Fame is one of the weirdest things. This video seems to be her honest story right now.”
Throughout the video, Pepper returns several times as different versions of herself hoping to impress the judges in order to pursue a showbiz dream.
She is labelled as having “no sex appeal”, “desperate” and “inauthentic”.
“The way you used to be, I miss that,” one executive said, echoing the real-life critiques Grande has received from the public — and parts of her own fanbase — for years.
“Do you got some personality disorder going on?”
At her Chicago concert on Monday night, Grande addressed her fans about her decision to step back, saying it was something she had planned “a long time ago”.
“So basically the announcement that was made yesterday is not a reactive or impulsive thing — it’s something I had decided to plan that I quietly made a long time ago and it’s a decision made from a thoughtful and empowered place and I want you to know that many things can be true at the same time,” she continued.
“I’m going to share this because I heard that my fans were worried negativity was ‘ruining things for me’ but I just have to say that could not be [further from the truth].
“I promise you this is not what that is and I just want to be very, very clear multiple things can be true at the same time. Boundaries need to be set.
“Human beings can need a break sometimes.”
Grande has spoken about her health and appearance in the past, saying that she has heard “every version of what’s wrong with me”.
“I think in today’s society, there is a comfortability that we shouldn’t have at all — commenting on others’ looks, appearance, what they think is going on behind the scenes or health or how they present themselves,” she said in a 2024 interview.
In a 2023 TikTok, Grande addressed concerns about her weight.
“I was on a lot of antidepressants and drinking on them and eating poorly and at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my healthy, but that in fact wasn’t my healthy,” she said.
“I know I shouldn’t have to explain that, but I do feel like having an openness and some sort of vulnerability here will [mean] something good might come from it. Healthy can look different.”
Grande rose to fame in the early 2010s after starring as Cat Valentine in the hit Nickelodeon TV series Victorious.
She solidified her popstar status with the 2013 release of her debut number-one album, Yours Truly.
