Ariana Grande’s ‘Thank U, Next’ Lyric Changes Underscore Eternal Sunshine Tour’s Celebration of Real-Time Healing: Show Review
Categoria: Musica
Ariana Grande's five-night run at Brooklyn's Barclays Center was a pitch-perfect fusion of music, live theater and film.
Por Billboard | 20/07/2026
When Ariana Grande last played a headlining show at a New York arena, “Thank U, Next” — the song that solidified her as a mainstay of pop culture’s exosphere — was only a few months old. Seven years later, during the conclusion of a stellar five-night mini-residency at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center (July 19), the three-time Grammy winner continued her recent lyrical tweaks to that Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash, adding yet another layer to the Eternal Sunshine Tour’s celebration of real-time healing. Related Every Ariana Grande Acting Role, Ranked Ariana Grande’s ‘Eternal Sunshine: Brighter Days Ahead’ Deluxe: All 6 Songs Ranked ‘Such a Breath of Fresh Air’: Ariana Grande’s ‘Yours Truly’ Collaborators Reflect on 10 Years of Her Debut Album “Thank U, Next,” Ariana’s first of 10 Hot 100 chart-toppers, spawned from a perfect storm of cosmically tumultuous high-profile relationships and an impending musical imperial phase. Though its kiss-off anthem rooted in gratitude, that grounding is sometimes forgotten thanks to the juicy narrative of the song’s dramatic arrival — and its racier successors “7 rings” and “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored.” When she edited the first verse from “Wrote some songs about Ricky, now I listen and laugh” to “Wrote some songs about Ricky, we always find our way back” at Sunday night’s show, that in-the-moment update recentered the song’s roots — and recontextualized them in the grander remembrance-over-erasure narrative that drives the Eternal Sunshine album and tour. Of course, the Ricky in question is Ricky Alvarez, reportedly Ariana’s current boyfriend, whom she last dated over 10 years ago. Grande and Alvarez’s professional relationship dates back to 2014, when he appeared as a backup dancer in her “Problem” music video and remained a key part of her inner circle, joining her for years of promotional performances and her 2015 Honeymoon Tour . The two notoriously made things donut shop-official by Independence Day that same year. Though they ended things by summer ’16, the pair remained friendly, with Alvarez joining Grande’s 2018 Sweetener World Tour as a photographer and videographer. Last week (July 14), TMZ confirmed the couple had rekindled their moonlit flame, following several increasingly positive “Thank U, Next” lyric tweaks dating back to “wrote some songs about Ricky, and they still kinda slap” at her June 24 show in Austin, Texas. With that Ricky line going from flippantly dismissive to heartwarmingly full-circle, Grande has, somewhat unintentionally, reaffirmed her tour’s overall message of the innate beauty of a nonlinear healing process that hinges on the embraces of every past version of oneself. Simply having the courage to revisit a relationship a decade later, and surrendering to fate while still navigating its winding paths with agency sourced from the meticulous healing of various interlocked traumas, is proof that