Who Is Ariana Grande? It’s always busy backstage at a Broadway musical, especially after the show. Actors rush to get out of their costumes and makeup. The stage crew works on getting all the sets and props ready for the next show.
To add to the backstage buzz, there might be visitors. Maybe they are friends or family of the cast and crew. Others might be famous actors, musicians, or politicians who want to see the new performance. Sometimes there are even lucky fans of the show excited to meet the many people who make the musical so great.
One night in 2003, Kristin Chenoweth, who starred as Glinda in the new hit show Wicked, was asked to meet a fan who had won a contest to come backstage. The small ten-year-old girl with dark curly hair was there with her grandmother. When they met, the excited girl told Kristin, “I want to be you.”
Chenoweth smiled. She had heard that from many young fans. But it takes a lot of hard work, patience, and talent to make it on Broadway.
Then, the girl’s grandmother told her to sing. Without hesitation, the young fan broke out into “Popular,” one of Glinda’s songs. Kristin couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The child’s voice was strong and she hit every note easily. Impressed, the star gave the girl a wand from the show and took a picture with her.
That backstage visitor was named Ariana Grande.
In a few short years, she would be on Broadway herself. Soon after that, she would be a TV star. Then, she would launch one of the most successful pop music careers of her era. And around twenty years after that backstage visit, Ariana would get to live out the dream of a lifetime—starring in the movie version of Wicked as Glinda . . . the same role that she had seen Kristin Chenoweth perform years before.
Ariana Grande would have tragedies as well as triumphs along the way to completing the full circle from that moment backstage at Wicked. But before any of that happened, she was just a girl in Florida who loved to sing along with the radio in her mom’s car.
Chapter 1 Broadway Bound Ariana Grande--Butera was born on June 26, 1993, in Boca Raton, Florida. Her mother, Joan Grande, ran a communications technology company. Her father, Ed Butera, was a graphic designer. She has an older half -brother, Frankie.
Ariana grew up loving horror movies and scary things, just like her mom. They dressed up in creepy costumes and makeup even when it wasn’t Halloween. One of her early birthday parties had a Jaws theme, with the classic movie about a killer shark playing on a big screen at their home. Many of the young guests got scared and left. But it didn’t bother Ariana—-Jaws was her favorite movie!
Ariana also showed an early interest in music. She enjoyed watching old movie musicals starring famous singers like Judy Garland and also listened to all the popular songs of the 1990s and early 2000s. Her favorite singers were Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, two artists known for their powerful voices.
When Ariana sang her favorites, though, she didn’t sound like most kids her age. Sometimes, as she sang with the car radio, her mom had trouble telling which voice was Ariana’s and which was the professional singer’s!
Ariana already had her eye on a career as a performer. She watched shows on Nickelodeon, a cable network for kids, and wanted desperately to be a part of them. When she was four years old, she called the network’s office and asked how to get on the shows. The person she spoke with told her she needed an agent.
Even without an agent, people were starting to notice Ariana. She played Annie in the musical
Annie at a community theater when she was just eight years old, then also appeared in The Wizard of Oz and Beauty and the Beast at that same theater. Around that time, Ariana’s parents separated. It hurt Ariana to see her parents break up, but she had support from her mom, Frankie, and her beloved grandpa and nonna (the Italian word for grandmother).
Joan began to take Ariana to karaoke nights at restaurants so she could get more chances to sing. At karaoke nights, she could get up in front of a crowd and sing along to the musical tracks of her favorite songs.
One night, Gloria Estefan, one of the most popular singers of the 1980s and 1990s, happened to be at the karaoke lounge on a cruise ship that Ariana and her mother were vacationing on. She heard Ariana singing and was shocked by the power and range of her voice. After Ariana finished, Estefan went up to her and Joan. Estefan told them that Ariana should try to become a professional singer because she had an amazing voice.
What made Ariana’s voice special? It sounded pretty, but what really caught people’s attention was her big range. That meant that she could easily sing very low notes and very high notes in a strong voice. Ariana could even sing in what people call the “whistle range.” That describes notes so high most people can only whistle them! It is very rare that people can sing in the whistle range as well as Ariana does.
Ariana also had learned from listening to her favorite singers Whitney and Mariah how to use her power and vocal range to show emotion by adding extra notes to a word in a song or holding a note longer than expected. That made her sound like a much more experienced performer.
In 2008, Ariana got her big break. A new Broadway show called 13: The Musical was looking for young actors. The show was about the lives of thirteen-year-olds, and the producers were planning to cast real teenagers for all the roles.
The Voice Singers frequently talk about singing in their “chest voice” or “head voice.” But what do they mean?
People use their larynx, a tube in their throat, to make sounds. When they make lower--pitched sounds, they feel vibrations across the lower muscle of the larynx. That’s how it got the name “chest voice.” When they make higher sounds, they feel those vibrations in the top muscle of the larynx. That’s the head voice.
The chest voice is good for making loud sounds, like yelling. The head voice is usually lighter and thinner, but performers like opera singers learn how to add power to even the highest notes in the head-voice range.
Mariah Carey is famous for her impressively wide vocal range. Soul singer Minnie Riperton, Broadway musical actress Julie Andrews, and rock star Freddie Mercury were also known for their powerful high notes. Even the orchestra would be all teen musicians. Ariana and Aaron Simon Gross, one of her closest friends, were among the many young performers who auditioned—and they both were cast!
Ariana was only fifteen. But she had already made one of her big dreams come true.
Chapter 2 Fan Favorite In
13, Ariana played a cheerleader named Charlotte. The musical officially opened on Broadway on October 5, 2008. Ariana loved the energy she got from performing in front of an audience. She became friends with the other cast members, especially Liz Gillies, another talented singer. The two girls would continue to be friends for a very long time after meeting during this show.
13: The Musical closed on January 4, 2009. The show opened the door for other opportunities, though, and in the fall of 2009, Ariana and Liz were cast in a new Nickelodeon comedy called
Victorious, starring Victoria Justice. The show was about teens at a performing arts high school. Ariana played Cat Valentine, a funny girl who often did or said silly things.
Ariana had to make a big change for the character, though. The show’s creators wanted Cat to have deep red hair. This meant that every other week during the show’s production, Ariana had to bleach, then dye her naturally dark brown hair. The process was very harsh, and it began to damage Ariana’s own hair.
Victorious premiered on March 27, 2010. The first episode got the second biggest audience for a live-action show in the history of Nickelodeon. It was a hit, and the network ordered a second season.
Although playing Cat won Ariana many fans, she had already decided that she really wanted to focus more on music than on acting. She was taking voice lessons in order to learn how to keep her voice healthy and strong, and she was writing and recording her own songs in her spare time.
Ariana was also making a name for herself on social media. While some stars hired professionals to run their social media accounts, Ariana was fully in charge of hers. She posted frequently on Twitter and communicated easily with the fans who began to follow her. They loved how she posted about ordinary moments in her life and how she took time to respond to them. Ariana seemed like someone they might really be friends with, not a TV star. Her fans eventually called themselves “Arianators.”
Ariana posted videos of herself singing on YouTube as well. She performed songs by Adele, Rihanna, and Bruno Mars. The videos were viewed millions of times, and she became one of YouTube’s most watched musicians.
Fans weren’t the only ones watching, though. Her videos caught the attention of executives at Republic Records, and in August 2011, Ariana signed her first record deal with them.
Ariana’s first single for Republic, “Put Your Hearts Up,” was released in December. Although it had some success, Ariana wasn’t happy. It was a simple, bouncy teen pop song that didn’t fit her style. She wanted to perform more complicated, emotional music, like the ’90s R&B songs she listened to while growing up.
Filming for the third season of
Victorious wrapped in 2012 and Nickelodeon decided not to renew the show for another season. The last episode ran on February 2, 2013.
But this didn’t mean Ariana could focus on music full-time yet. She had been cast in a new Nickelodeon comedy,
Sam & Cat, which began filming in January 2013. In this show, her
Victorious character, Cat, forms a babysitting service with Sam Puckett, a character played by Jennette McCurdy from
iCarly, another popular Nickelodeon show.
At the same time, Ariana was finishing up her first full album. After talking to Republic Records executives, they agreed to let her focus on the R&B sounds she preferred. The new album included many of the songs Ariana had been working on over the last few years, with ideas from other experienced producers and songwriters. Some, like the singer-songwriter Victoria Monét, became close friends with Ariana.
A producer gave Ariana a song called “The Way,” and she decided to record it as a duet with rapper Mac Miller. While working together on the song, Mac taught Ariana how to use different audio engineering tools. She discovered that she loved being in the studio and creating songs.
“The Way” was released on March 25, 2013, and it reached number nine on the
Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Billboard magazine’s charts track the popularity of singles, or songs, and full albums. When Ariana’s first album,
Yours Truly, was released on August 30 of that same year, it immediately went to number one on
Billboard ’s charts. Ariana was only the fifteenth female artist in history to have her debut album open at number one.
Sam & Cat had also become a hit. Nickelodeon had originally planned to make twenty episodes for the first season, but the show did so well with audiences that the network added another twenty episodes.
Ariana had a hit album, a successful TV show, and was one of the most popular performers on Twitter, with almost as many followers as megastars like Britney Spears and Beyoncé. Life was good. But it was about to get more complicated.
Copyright © 2024 by Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
