Ariana Grande to Keep a Low Profile Following Album Release

Ariana Grande CD on a wall. Photo by Miguel Valencia on Unsplash

Global pop star sensation Ariana Grande’s album “Eternal Sunshine” released March 8, 2024, to widespread acclaim. After her three-and-a-half-year break spent working on Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked,” the long-awaited album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for one week. Inevitably, loyal fans were anticipating a rollout of music videos and a world tour announcement.

Now fresh off her widely acclaimed “Eternal Sunshine” tour, Grande’s representative announced to People Magazine that she will be “taking a step back from visibility,” due to intense scrutiny following the release of her music videos. 

Millie Bobby Brown was looked at through a microscope during her early fame after the success of the hit Netflix show “Stranger Things” in a similar situation. At just 14 years old, she deleted her Twitter account because of the growing hateful rhetoric towards her following false claims made about her being prejudiced and conversation regarding her body. 

The long list of celebrities pressured into hiding because of social media’s toxic nature is not limited to women.

Barry Keoghan, the star of the 2023 hit movie “Saltburn,” reconsidered his entire acting career because of the excessive vitriol from the media following the movie’s release.

“There’s a lot of hate online. It’s a lot of abuse of how I look,” Keoghan said. 

Keoghan stopped going to events, deleted social media and even stopped working for a while following the comments.

Social media gives people an overwhelming amount of access to celebrities. With that comes the toxic sense of entitlement that the public feels to celebrities’ private lives and the sense of obligation to publicly criticize what might not look right.

Social media’s culture of hyper-scrutiny catching up to Grande is indicative of a greater pattern online. Fans will be left with the need to re-examine the lens they use to critique their favorite celebrities.