21-year-old hitmaker Ariana Grande is the latest cover girl for the October 2014 issue of Marie Claire magazine.
The pop star reveals to Marie Claire, that her “mature” songwriting began years ago.
On early ambitions: “I was 14 years old and ready to make an R&B album. I was like, ‘Where is that Mary J. Blige collab? Where is that Natasha Bedingfield writing session? Where is my session with India.Arie? I’m ready. Let’s go.’ I wrote this song called ‘Higher,’ and the lyrics were too sexual, too mature. And my mom was like, ‘This is a great song, but damn, you’re too young for this.’”
On hiding behind her Nickelodeon character: “People liked her and they accepted her and they thought that I was like her. So I used to pretend to be a little more like her than I actually was.”
On her first single, “Put Your Hearts Up,” tanking: “I was like, ‘Guys, there has to be a really distinct difference between me and my character.’ And we did that with ‘The Way.’ I dyed my hair back to brown. I made out with a rapper in the video. I made the point I wanted to make. And I was excited to do so after so many years of pretending to be somebody else in front of a lot of people.”
On her first car accident: “I was driving to Big Sean’s house on those windy hills in L.A. It was my first time going up those hills so I was going like 12 miles per hour. This lady was whipping around the corner, and I came to a complete stop so she bumped me really hard—the whole front of my Range Rover was wrecked. She jumped out and was like, ‘Sweetie, it’s okay, it’s totally fine. What do you do?’ I was like, ‘I’m a singer,’” she recalls, “And she was like, ‘Oh, I think I broke my leg.’ And I was like, ‘I mean, I make jewelry.’”
For more on Ariana Grande head on over to MarieClaire.com.
Photos: Tesh/Marie Claire
