A suicide bomber targeted an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester on Monday. She is among a wave of young female singers who are phenomenally popular with school-age girls.
Ariana Grande is among a wave of young female singers who are phenomenally popular with school-age girls.
The 23-year-old’s most dedicated fans – largely made up of girls between the ages of eight and 18 – call themselves Arianators.
These fans have given Miss Grande a huge social media following – 45.6million on Twitter and 105million on Instagram.
The performer, whose close friends include Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez, wears revealing outfits at her lively concerts, along with her signature accessory – a set of bunny ears.
Although her appearance is not quite as sexualised as the likes of Miss Cyrus and Katy Perry, her image may have been the target of the Muslim extremist.
Miss Grande’s outspoken views and social media-friendly language has proved popular with her child fanbase, encouraging them to speak out against prejudice and misogyny.
Due to her predominantly young fans, the attacker would have known there would be thousands of children and teenagers in the audience, many of whom will have been attending their first pop concert.
The former child star entered the public eye in 2009 when she was cast on the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious, playing high school student Cat Valentine.
Miss Grande, whose mother, Joan, is chief executive of a communications firm and whose father is a graphic designer, branched out into pop music in 2011. She signed with Republic Records, and her debut album, Yours Truly, came out in 2013.
Its lead single, The Way, reached the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. More recently, the singer’s 2016 album, Dangerous Woman, hit number one in the UK.
The singer has proven to be a fashion chameleon during her climb to fame, with her hair and make-up undergoing drastic changes over the past ten years.
Her modest look early in her career was described as ‘age-appropriate’ compared with other pop stars who had grown up in the public eye.
However in 2014 she began to perform wearing short skirts and crop tops along with hair extensions and knee-high boots.
In an interview with Time magazine the same year, she was asked about her go-to dance moves in a club. She replied: ‘There’s a lot of strutting to the beat. There’s a lot of sitting down and leg-kicking and posing and hair-flipping involved.’
Three years ago the singer performed at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, held in Earl’s Court in west London. For the occasion she wore a dazzling two-piece set, comprising glittery knicker shorts and matching bra.
She paired the ensemble with over-the-knee black boots which had the work ‘pink’ emblazoned across the top.
In perhaps her biggest brush with controversy, in 2015 Miss Grande released a feminist manifesto that attacked the focus on her, and other women’s, personal lives. She tweeted: ‘The double standards and misogyny are still ever-present.
‘I can’ t wait to live in a world where people are not valued by who they’ re dating/married to/attached to, having sex with (or not) /seen with … but by their value as an individual.’
Raised Roman Catholic, she has said she left the Church due to its position on gay rights and instead dabbles in the Kabbalah, a mystical branch of Judaism that has also attracted Madonna.
Miss Grande has received a number of awards, including three American Music Awards and three MTV Europe Music Awards. She has also received four Grammy Award nominations. The Florida-born singer is dating American rapper Mac Miller. She has known the 25-year-old since she was 19, but they didn’ t get together until last year. In an interview with Cosmopolitan earlier this year, she said: ‘We have loved each other since the beginning.’
Miss Grande met actor Graham Phillips in the cast of the musical 13 in 2008 and dated him until December 2011.
The singer was set to tour her Dangerous Woman album around the world but has suspended further shows following the attack.
The tour, across four continents, started in February and was due to run until September.
