Ariana Grande Has Opened Up About Struggling With Anxiety After The Manchester Bombing

In an interview with Elle magazine, Ariana Grande has spoken candidly about the Manchester bombing and how “everything is different” since it happened just over a year ago.

The singer opened up about how much it has affected her and how she’s moving forward, and never going to let it keep her from doing what she loves.

“You hear about these things,” she said. “You see it on the news, you tweet the hashtag. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again. It makes you sad, you think about it for a little, and then people move on.”

But experiencing something like that firsthand, you think of everything differently.… Everything is different.

After the bombing, which killed 22 people and left over 500 injured, Ariana went back home to her family in Boca Raton, Florida. But her mother Joan explains that while her daughter didn’t speak much during that time, all she wanted to do was return to Manchester.

It was two or three in the morning; she crawled into bed and said, ‘Mom, let’s be honest, I’m never not going to sing again. But I’m not going to sing again until I sing in Manchester first.’

From that came the One Love Manchester concert which saw artists such as Miley Cyrus, Coldplay and Pharrell Williams perform. The concert ended up raising €19 million for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund.

Why would I second-guess getting on a fucking stage and being there for them? That city, and their response? That changed my life.

Following the bombing, Ariana said she struggled with her anxiety, which she had been living with already but had never become physical.

I had really wild dizzy spells, this feeling like I couldn’t breathe. I would be in a good mood, fine and happy, and they would hit me out of nowhere. I’ve always had anxiety, but it had never been physical before.

Ariana’s mother features a lot in the piece. From showing Jaws at her daughter’s fourth birthday to getting real hearts from the butchers at halloween, Joan comes across as an extraordinarily interesting woman.

Joan was in the audience during the concert when the bomb went off.

I was like a fish swimming in the wrong direction. Everyone was leaving, and I was going toward the stage. The bomb went off, and I’m looking at these young adults with fear in their eyes.

Ariana takes a strong political stance in her career and is not afraid to promote what she believes. She has aligned herself with anti-Trumpism, gun reform and Black Lives Matter. Asked whether she has faced backlash, she replied, “Absolutely.”

There’s a lot of noise when you say anything about anything. But if I’m not going to say it, what’s the fucking point of being here? Not everyone is going to agree with you, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to shut up and sing my songs.

This lady has a lot of strength!

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• Ariana Grande
• Manchester