Fucking Friday: We Need to Leave Ariana Grande the Fuck Alone

By Danny Dacus

Twenty six year old rapper, Mac Miller, was reported dead of a suspected overdose on September 7, 2018, and in the days since, in between loving tributes and anecdotes, the internet has taken to what seems to be one of its favorite pastimes. What would that be?

Harassing Ariana Grande. What else?

Miller and Grande were in a relationship for about two years, splitting in May of this year. During their relationship, Shane Powers, a friend of Miller’s, has spoken about how she did everything she could to help him sober up.

Grande cited substance abuse for one of the reasons for their break up, and soon after, got engaged to Pete Davidson. Miller overdosed around four months after the end of his relationship with Grande.

Clearly, according to the internet, it is all Ariana Grande’s fault. To the point where she had to turn off her fucking Instagram comments. Because that is how we treat people in mourning, everyone. We harass them and blame them for someone’s overdose. Good job, internet. I’m really proud of you.

Let’s just unpack everything about this.

I love social media, don’t get me wrong. But the culture of always being available and always showing everything we’re feeling or else we aren’t feeling it and also, of course expecting more of our celebrities than we do average people has lead to this awful cesspool of a need to see people’s grief and heartbreak laid bare, or else it is simply not happening. We have the emotional object permanence of an infant. That’s the state we’re in, internet. Anybody with, hm, a quarter of a brain could tell that the death of someone Grande was in a two year relationship with and broke up with only months ago would leave Grande in mourning and probably wracked with grief.

So why is it not only common, but expected for people to harass her with comments? Why does this happen every time a death or a heartbreak becomes known to the public at large? From a Kardashian’s beau being caught cheating while she was pregnant (I don’t follow the Kardashians -- I think it was Khloe? Kourtney? I can’t tell them apart.) to people harassing Lea Michele after her boyfriend of several years was found dead of an overdose, the automatic reaction is to expect and demand a response from the bereaved party, and it’s bullshit.

Celebrities don’t actually owe you their grief. They don’t. You wouldn’t demand your roommate or best friend to sob to prove they’re upset. Don’t demand that of people who are functionally strangers. It’s just shitty.

Next point: Ariana Grande has been through some shit as of late. Off the top of my head: a terrorist attack at her concert and returning to the place what, two weeks later? Then there is getting groped/sexually assaulted at Aretha Franklin’s funeral by a man of God and getting blamed because of what she was wearing. She split with a man she tried to help with his sobriety for two years, and cited that same substance abuse struggle for why she couldn’t be with him anymore. A few months later, he passed, and now she’s being blamed for that death.

Give her a fucking break. Ariana Grande is twenty five years old, and has been through this, and probably more, given that she both is not obligated to share all her struggles with the world and also I don’t actually follow Grande, so there’s probably some things I don’t know. Regardless. Leave her the fuck alone.

Last point: it isn’t Grande’s fault.

There are a couple of people who say that Grande was wrong to end it with Miller, knowing she was a stabilizing force. There are people who will say she owed it to him to get him sober, to keep him together, to fix him, that to break up with him because of his addiction makes it her fault when he overdosed.

I feel a lot of things, when I see this kind of thought. Angry, mostly, at how cruel, thoughtless, and misogynistic (yeah, you heard me — no one attributes this kind of thinking to men when its women struggling and women certainly do not owe it to men to heal them.) this is. Sad that there are people who believe this. Mostly, though? I just get scared, for all the people who are seeing this and internalizing it.

I need the people — not just girls and women, but people — to understand that it is okay if substance abuse is your breaking point, if it is something you cannot handle in a relationship. I know you want to help them. I know you want to try. But not everyone will let you help them, and that isn't on you. It is okay to walk away from this, I swear. You are not obligated to stay with someone who abuses substances. You are not obligated to be your partner’s savior.

You are not obligated to fix every broken man you meet. There is a difference between supporting and functioning like a therapist, and not everyone wants to be helped. People need to want to be helped to get a foot in the door with recovery.

We have this culture, of how men need a good woman to save them. To teach them how to be adults or to save them from their mental illness or to teach them how to be better fucking human beings, or how to work through their lingering parental issues or whatever. And that’s wrong! You are not obligated to be anyone’s parent or savior or what the fuck ever. There’s a difference between support and self harm, man. Don’t light yourself on fire because someone told you they were cold.

Addiction is a disease. I absolutely believe in helping addicts, and I could talk about ways to do that for days because I’ve done research there. Addicts deserve love, and empathy, and support, and help. You shouldn’t dump someone out of your life because they’re addicts, or enable or ignore it, you should not treat addicts like they’re less than human. But you should not feel obligated to force yourself to stay with someone because of it. You do not owe someone else your mental and physical health.

And I am genuinely so worried about and so scared for all the teenagers and twenty somethings who love Ariana Grande, who are getting the message that if you break up with a man because his actions are hurting you, and he dies because of those actions, it is your fault. That’s wrong. That is immoral and cruel. It’s okay if your mental health comes first. It’s okay to take care of yourself.

Please. You don’t owe anyone this.

I don’t have a good end to this. I don’t have words that are immediately going to change the culture or anything. I hope this is going to help somebody. You don’t have to be someone’s savior.

And for God’s sake, let Ariana Grande grieve in peace. Give her that much respect. She’s a 25 year old who has had a terrorist attack, sexual assault, and death of a close friend/ex partner die.

Leave her the fuck alone.