Ariana Grande is giving the people what they want. While sitting down with Zane Lowe for an Apple Music 1 interview posted Thursday (March 7) — just one day ahead of the release of her new album Eternal Sunshine — the 30-year-old pop star explained how one of her new songs, “The Boy Is Mine,” finds her taking on the role of a “bad girl” for her fans’ listening pleasure.
“It’s kind of like, okay, ‘I’ll play the bad girl, here’s your bad girl anthem,’” Grande told Lowe, noting that another song, “True Story,” sets listeners up for “The Boy Is Mine.”
The Grammy winner also touched on the track’s obvious callback to Brandy and Monica’s iconic smash of the same name, which ruled atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 13 weeks in 1998. “I love that song,” Grande said. “I’ve always wanted to reimagine that song in some kind of way.”
“I kind of was like, ‘This is a very bad idea, I think, but there is a large group of my fans that really, they do love a bad girl anthem,’” she continued. “And this is kind of an elevated version of that.”
The Victorious alum also confirmed that “The Boy Is Mine” will feature cannibalized parts of “Fantasize,” an unreleased track that leaked — and promptly went viral — on TikTok last year. “I kind of gave them Ariana’s version of that on the album,” she previously told Zach Sang of the reworked ’90s-inspired jam. “They’re completely different now. So although you’ve heard them — because [someone] stole them — they’re very different now.”
Grande has only released one single ahead of Eternal Sunshine: “Yes, And?,” which earned the singer her eighth career No. 1 on the Hot 100 in January. One could argue that she plays the “bad girl” a little bit on that track as well, with lyrics such as, “Your business is yours and mine is mine/ Why do you care so much whose d-ck I ride?”
Watch Grande’s Apple Music 1 interview above.