Ariana Grande Biography

news-detailsAriana Grande entered music scene with a strong impression. With her powerful vocal chops, she was even dubbed as the next Mariah Carey and compared to Whitney Houston. Her debut single "The Way" featuring Mac Miller broke the top-10 list of Billboard Hot 100 peaking at No. 9 and rising one spot higher on the U.K. chart.

Grande was best known for portraying the character Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon sitcom "Victorious" before getting a big break in music. Born in 1993 in Boca Raton, Florida, she sang from a tender age and co-founded the youth singing group, Kids Who Care, in South Florida. They performed in various charity events, raising over $500,000 for charities in 2007 alone.

By her teens, Ariana Grande-Butera had performed with several South Florida orchestral ensembles. Even more impressing, she made her Broadway debut at age 15 in the role of Charlotte in the musical "13", and then appeared in the role of Miriam in Desmond Child's musical "Cuba Libre".

When "The Way" was released in March 2013, it was sold over 120,000 units in the first 48 hours before moving on to 219,000 units in its opening week. It held the third best-selling first-week sales figure of 2013 behind Justin Timberlake's "Suit & Tie" and One Direction's "Best Song Ever" back then. It debuted at No. 10 on the chart before climbing to No. 9.

As her star shone, the then-Nickelodeon star started collecting prestigious awards. She won Best Newcomer at the 2013 Billboard Mid-Year Music Awards. She also received three Teen Choice Award nominations; Best Love Song, Best Breakout Artist and Style Icon.

She then announced her debut album, "Yours Truly". It features Big Sean and The Wanted's Nathan Sykes, besides Miller. It was released in the United States on September 3. "They can expect a lot of honesty," she said of the effort. "It's like a direct... you know, it's like it used to be pages from my diary, instead of keeping diary, I would write songs about what was happening in my life. So it's really personal. It's a Motown throwback and pop at the same time, so it's '50s and '60s inspiration mixed with today."

Less than a year after she had the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard 200, Grande revealed she had already started working on a follow-up. The first single off the second LP then arrived in late April. The song titled "Problem" and featuring verses from Iggy Azalea debuted at No. 3 on Billboard 200, giving Grande her biggest digital song sales week ever. It eventually reached No. 2.

While her new single still received heavy airplay on the radio, Grande announced that her second single would be called "Break Free" and it featured EDM superstar Zedd. Premiering on the one-day revival of "TRL" back in July, the song has so far peaked inside Billboard 100's top 10.

Grande's sophomore record, "My Everything", is scheduled to be released on August 25. New tracks that made the cut to album include her newest collaboration with Big Sean "Best Mistake" and a track penned by One Direction's Harry Styles called "A Little Bit of My Heart".

Following its arrival, the album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard 200. Other singles off the record, including The Weeknd-assisted "Love Me Harder" and "One Last Time", all peaked inside the top 10 of the Hot 100 chart.

Earlier in 2015, Grande announced that she had an album called "Moonlight" coming out later in the year. However, she didn't let fans hear what her new music would sound like until late October, when she finally released the LP's first single "Focus". The song made its debut on Billboard Hot 100 at No. 7, making Grande the first artist to have the lead cuts of her first three albums landed in the chart's top 10.

Despite the success on charts, the song received negative reviews from critics who said it sounded too similar to her 2014 hit "Problem". In early 2016, Grande decided to retitle her third album to "Dangerous Woman" and released the title track as the first official single.

"A really long time ago I was convinced that it was going to be called 'Moonlight' because it's one of my favorite songs that we did for the album," she explained the change in an interview on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". "And now, as we're wrapping things up, of course I've been writing and singing, we're at the final stretch... Now there's this other song that has thrown me for a whirlwind and I love it so much, it's changed everything."

The album was released on May 20 and entered Billboard 200 at No. 2. It became her first album to miss the No. 1 spot. Meanwhile, the single "Dangerous Woman" debuted at No. 10 on Billboard Hot 100 upon its release. It fell to No. 13 in its second week, but gradually rebounded. Recently, it returned to the top 10, reaching No. 8. "Into You", the second single off the LP, has been slowly climbing up the chart, currently sitting at No. 48.

Before kicking off her world tour in support of “Dangerous Woman”, Ariana made a cameo appearance in comedy film "Zoolander 2" in addition to performing a tribute to Whitney Houston in the season finale of ABC’s "Greatest Hits". She also hit the stage at the 2016 Jingle Ball Tour alongside the likes of Meghan Trainor, Justin Bieber and more.

She began her "Dangerous Woman Tour" in February 2017 in North America before traveling to Europe. However, an unfortunate thing happened during one of her tour stops. On May 22, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive in the foyer of Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, causing multiple fatalities and injuries.

The tragedy prompted her to suspend the tour and hold a benefit concert, "One Love Manchester", on June 4 at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester. Along with Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams and more stars, she helped raise $23 million to aid the bombing victims and affected families. Due to her benefit concert, Ariana was named the first honorary citizen of Manchester.

Ariana resumed her world tour on June 7 in Paris, two weeks after the bombing attack. After traveling to Latin America, Oceania and Asia, the songstress wrapped out the 77-date trek on September 21 at AsiaWorld Arena in Hong Kong.

That same year, she premiered a collaborative track with John Legend, "Beauty and the Beast", which served as the soundtrack to a movie of the same name. She was also presented with Billboard's Female Artist of the Year Award even without releasing an album that year.

Ariana took a hiatus from social media since welcoming 2018. She broke her social media silence in April by teasing a new song called "No Tears Left to Cry". Released on April 20, the song debuted at No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. It also serves as the first single off her new album "Sweetener", which will be released on July 20.