Ariana Grande is opening up about how her current tour has felt different from her past ones.
In a recent interview, the 33-year-old singer explained that during her earlier tours, she wasn’t fully present in the same way she is now.
“I think my last tour I wasn’t necessarily in the same place in life, and I wasn’t able to be as present as I am this time,” she said on Monday in an interview with Vosk in the City.
She joked that she also wasn’t wearing contact lenses at the time. She said being able to truly see and connect with her fans this time around has felt especially meaningful.
“So to be able to literally, like, actually see and connect and feel … and to connect with them in this way, just to
sing these songs that have been a part of our, like relationship, for 11 years or 10 years or like 13 years now at this point and just see them and know them and see them dressed as like strange niche jokes and stuff … it’s just a very long, long-term relationship.”
Grande also reflected on when she first began to feel such deep support from her fans, saying she noticed it early in her career, back when she was still very young and building her following online.
“The first time I felt it was when I first started, and I was very young, and I was doing TV and putting covers on YouTube and everything, like, it has felt like the same kind of love since, which has felt very real to me and just very mutual,” she said.
Grande’s tour will wrap in London on September 1, after which she plans to step back from public life for a while, following ongoing public attention around her health and appearance.
Grande previously addressed her upcoming break with fans directly, explaining that the decision was planned quietly well in advance and wasn’t a reaction to negativity.
It was also confirmed that Grande will no longer take part in an upcoming London stage production she had been expected to join opposite her Wicked costar Jonathan Bailey.