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Singer Ariana Grande appeared on The Zach Sang Show where she seemingly addressed the backlash over her romance with Ethan Slater and held the tabloids responsible for it.

In case you missed the drama, Grande broke up with her ex-husband Dalton Gomez and a mere three days later news broke that she was dating her Wicked co-star Slater. According to Glamour, Slater himself “was also in a committed relationship when filming [for Wicked] began. In fact, Slater had been married to high school sweetheart Lilly Jay since 2018 and welcomed his first child with her sometime in 2022”. The rushed timeline of it all spurred rumours that both Grande and Slater cheated on their spouses before leaving them for each other.

She also recently released a new song titled ‘yes, and?’, which features lyrics such as “Now I’m so done with caring, what you think, no, I won’t hide underneath your own projections or change my most authentic life”.

During the interview, the singer was prompted by Sang about people “crafting their own narratives”. Grande replied that people “know this about the tabloids and the media”.

“Am I crazy? Don’t people know this?” she questioned, adding that people “selectively remember that this is what tabloids do to people, especially women, based on whether or not we like the person”.

“We selectively leave space for humanness and nuance. They [the media] don’t do that. Well, they do, for their friends and family, but they turn it off when that aligns with the version of a person that they have in their head that they want to believe is true,” Grande continued.

The ‘Positions’ singer added: “We don’t need to go into any specifics, but of course there’s an insatiable frustration, inexplicable hellish feeling, watching people misunderstand the people you love, and you.”

While she did not mention her current beau by name, netizens were quick to assume that the conversation was about her relationship with Slater and its coverage by the media. And boy, did everyone have a lot to say.

People highlighted that both Slater and Grande made the “conscious decision to cheat” (allegedly, of course), adding that she “got involved with a married man, who just barely welcomed a baby at the time”.

Others urged her to not “hide behind” feminism, and that this was “not a feminist issue”. They questioned where her “concern” was for Slater’s former spouse when she purportedly “wrecked her family”.

“You trying to turn this thing around as if what is happening to you is a discrimination against women, it’s discussing [sic]”, one netizen wrote.

People also recalled that Slater’s former spouse had gone on “record” against Grande, therefore “it wasn’t the tabloids twisting anything”. Jay, in an exclusive comment to Page Six, had said: “[Ariana’s] the story, really. Not a girl’s girl. My family is just collateral damage”.

Some comments claimed Grande was trying to “gaslight” her fans into “justifying her breaking up a family”, and that she had a “huge fan base” thus “no one is choosing to align you with their negative opinion of you”. People maintained that she had “too much love from people and thinks she can destroy others’ lives and it’s ok because she’s happy”.

Meanwhile, social media users alleged that The Zach Sang Show team were deleting several negative comments from the original YouTube video.

Talk about a hot mess.