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Ariana Grande is opening up about the "dark times" she experienced during two of her biggest eras.
The Wicked star appeared on the February 3 episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast where she detailed the "grief and depression" she fought through during her Sweetener and Thank U, Next eras and how creating music helped her through her post-traumatic stress, per People.
Sweetener, which came out in 2018, was Grande's first project after the deadly bombing at the Manchester stop of her Dangerous Woman tour in 2017 that left 22 people dead and hundreds more injured. Weeks after the album dropped, Grande faced another unexpected personal tragedy when her ex-boyfriend Mac Miller died of an accidental overdose.
The compounded tragedies and traumatic events had a major impact on Grande's mental health, something she worked through not just in therapy but through her music. She reportedly made most of 2019's Thank U, Next in about two weeks' time as a "means of survival."
"I was doing so much therapy, and I was dealing with PTSD and all different kinds of grief and depression and anxiety. And, I was, of course, treating it very seriously, but having music be a part of that remedy was absolutely contributing to saving my life," she said, adding, "They were dark times, and the music brought so much levity and so did the experience. But it poured out with urgency, and it was made with urgency, and it was a means of survival."
Grande said that her record label was "hesitant" to move on from Sweetener so soon as it "wasn't really a commonly done thing" outside of rap and hip-hop, but she knew she had to create new music because it was "what I needed from my soul."
"It felt really healing and freeing," she said. "It was just such a beautiful moment of connection."