We have to talk Ariana Grandes gaunt figure is

Over the last three years, Ariana Grande has shrunk before our eyes. And we need to talk about it, no matter how uncomfortable it might make us feel to pick apart a person’s body.Because hundreds of millions of people across the world follow Grande on social media, many of them young, impressionable girls — and their developing body image and mental health depend on it.And because Grande herself has invited the conversation, writing and filming a music video in which she brutally murders a tableful of men who have picked apart her body and her image. She might have intended to use the film for her new single “Petal” to shut the conversation down, but how could we not talk about the fact that her protruding collarbones and skeletal body were the most dominant feature of the entire video? 33-year-old Grande was already alarmingly thin during her “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good” press tours in 2024 and 2025.Then during her recent Eternal Sunshine tour, it was impossible not to notice her twig-like, gaunt and, yes, scary-looking body.But it was her latest ‘Petal’ video that became the hardest to ignore.In it, Grande plays Pepper, a Hollywood hopeful who is told again and again by casting directors that she is not good enough.As the group of men critiques her looks and her weight, one character scrawls a note (despite Grande’s obviously skeletal form) that Pepper “couldn’t hurt to lose a few pounds”.Eventually, Grande’s character — a literal shadow of her former self — snaps and, with a roaring chainsaw, hacks her row of critics gorily to death, emerging blood-spattered and victorious.But the alarmingly thin state of her body obscures any intended message of self- or female-empowerment the music video might have to offer.And it’s even more disturbing when you see her in scenes standing or sitting next to an army of almost rudely healthy other women. Yes, it would be easier to say nothing and to appease her fans who say we should l...