I am, admittedly, a little old to be writing this. I am not even a fan of hers. I heard a couple of her songs. I thought they were terrible. And to say that she would not be fit to fit Mariah Carey’s shoes at a shoe fitting would be an understatement.
But I am not here to show hate. Only love. I will try to keep this short and sweet. Here goes.
Dear Ms. Grande,
I read an article about a downfall of your (seemingly) sweet nature on Buzzfeed this morning.
I am sure that there will be some excuse that it was written by “haters”, but the evidence presented was pretty damning. Especially the rather detailed blog post by the father who’s children came to see you as winners of a contest.
http://primalscreaming.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/meeting-ariana-grande-then-and-now/
Sure, MTV fucked up. There was no excuse for your behavior. As you being someone who spent her childhood acting and working in the public eye, one would expect you to know and act better. Much, much better.
So, the following :
Don’t stop:
Singing
Acting
Chasing your dreams
Pursuing better songwriters for your material
Learning from the experience of others, like Taylor Swift (I’m not a fan of hers either, although I do think her switch to all out pop music suits her to a T)
Please stop:
Treating former associates like crap
Treating your fans, in real life, like garbage (for anyone who says “but she’s nice on Twitter”, of course she is. Any one who has half a brain is nice to followers on Twitter. And when any conversation no longer suits you, you can walk away or block. Convenient, no?)
Forcing your fans to delete their memories of you because a hair was out of place, or something.
Siccing security, record execs, or lawyers on someone because you didn’t like what they said/did/photographed, et al.
Encouraging members of your staff to do the same on your behalf.
Just being a flat out phony.
Ms. Grande, I am sure that you are only doing what you can to protect yourself and protect your brand. And that is okay. However, when using unnecessary force on those who mean you no harm, do you know what this makes you look like to the rest of the world?
A bully.
We have enough of those, sweetie. We also have one mega multimedia teen-baiting douchebag (step forward, Justin Bieber) to deal with. We don’t need another one.
Do better, hon. We know you can.
Kisses and love,
Helen
ps. In order to avoid any distraction from psycho fans, ruffled members of street teams and annoyed record execs, comments are closed. Deal.
ADDENDUM:
So, the father who posted about his daughters’ experiences with Ariana Grande back in August has posted an update on his blog:
Because we have a potential Ebola virus epidemic, journalists being beheaded by so-called “Islamic” terrorists, protesters being jailed because police are corrupt, several civil wars AND all out wars happening in Eastern Europe and the Middle East…
but this guy blog makes news because US lamestream media.
Anyway,
Ms. Grande, you have some explaining to do and some fences to mend.
Here is how I suggest you fix the problem.
You know how Americans are. We won’t rest until we get closure. So, why don’t you give this family the closure it needs and deserves. Instead of using your people to harrass and intimidate this father for calling you out, instead of allowing your other fans to send his children death threats (DEATH THREATS), take the high road. Actually reach out to these people and arrange a meet and greet. Hell, a picnic would be nice. No record company or management involvement. In fact, noone else even need to know about it. No twitter, no instagram, nothing. Just all of you together (and perhaps the other contest winner as well), talking it out, having fun, enjoying life. You can even bring that CD that contest winner created of covers of that songs. And you all can enjoy it. You get your positive press back, the family gets closure, noone will be the wiser.
And then, next time, show a little more consideration to the people to whom you REALLY owe your career. Because it certainly wasn’t, and won’t ever be, people like myself.
Best,
Helen
Helen Sventitsky 