Ariana Grande Returns With 23-Song Los Angeles Run After 7 Years Off Tour

Q: Is Ariana Grande's new album a critique of the very fanbase that brought her fame?

Not exactly. “Eternal Sunshine” is better understood as a rebuttal to scrutiny and a defense of Ariana Grande’s autonomy than as a direct attack on the fans who made her famous. The album and tour repeatedly push back on outside commentary. In “Yes, And?” Grande dismisses tabloid chatter and policing of her body, and in the title track she emphasizes, “I don’t care what people say is true.” Onstage, the memory-erasure imagery and her decision to reject it frame the project around living with pain, public judgment and trauma rather than trying to erase them. That said, the broader material around this era does suggest a more complicated relationship with fandom. Reporting tied to the tour notes that Grande has regretted letting fan expectations shape her choices in the past, particularly around “Positions.” Her newer song “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” from the next album “Petal,” goes further by questioning whether she owes anything for devotion “given of your own accord.” Critics have read that as a rare challenge to parasocial fan culture and to over-investment by loyal listeners. So the sharper critique is not really on “Eternal Sunshine” itself. That album is mainly about reclaiming her narrative after grief, trauma and public controversy. But the current phase of Grande’s work, especially the material previewed after it, does indicate she is reassessing the bargain between pop star and fanbase, and setting firmer boundaries around it.

3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 14

Five shows at Los Angeles's Crypto.com Arena opened with Grande's first tour-style return since 2019, built around a 23-song set promoting her 2024 album Eternal Sunshine.
The production framed memory erasure as the night's central theme, using a flooded-house visual narrative and songs from Eternal Sunshine to revisit grief, heartbreak and public scrutiny.
Grande balanced that introspection with pop spectacle—opening with Yes, And?, hitting repeated whistle notes, then driving through fan favorites including One Last Time, Rain on Me and Break Free.
Dangerous Woman emerged as the emotional high point, while a new song, Hate That I Made You Love Me from forthcoming album Petal, pointed beyond the Los Angeles run.