We actually do need to talk about Ariana Grande

Because sometimes silence fails to protect those who need it most.

Hello!

Hope everyone had a good week 🫶

Welcome to our new subscribers from The Know — so happy to have you all here.

This week’s newsletter was a difficult one to write: it’s on Ariana Grande, and why the blanket rule of “don’t comment on women’s bodies” does not always feel like it’s protecting those who need it most. I’d love to hear from any of you in the comments if you have thoughts.

Also in this week’s issue:

• News: Stories from the Capsule universe you may have missed from this week

• Hot + Not: With alt-pop artist Tanis

• Add to Queue: Great stuff to read, watch, and listen to this weekend

Have a lovely weekend,

Holly x

Want to work with Capsule?

Are you a brand, a PR, a writer, or just someone with an idea who might want to collab? Please reach out — I am down for coffees! ☕

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In April 2023, Ariana Grande posted a video addressing the public’s concern over her weight loss. She said that the body people were comparing her current state to was actually her at her lowest point. Although the public and the media deemed her healthy back then, she explained that she was on antidepressants, drinking on them, and eating poorly. The conclusion was that we, as outsiders, have no idea what’s really going on with someone, and therefore should not speculate.

In the vast majority of cases, it feels morally correct to respect someone’s wishes for privacy, especially when so much of their life is on display already. To keep prying into personal issues feels grotesque, an aspect of fame that most of us would struggle to deal with. But when photos and videos emerged from Ariana’s new tour this week, her request for silence felt harder and harder to uphold.

The Eternal Sunshine Tour is Ariana’s first in almost seven years, but she’s hardly been relaxing since then. From 2020-2026, she released two new albums, plus a 10-year anniversary reissue of Dangerous Woman. She became Glinda and shot two Wicked movies, then went on intense press tours for both. Ariana was recently confirmed to star in a theatre production of Sunday in the Park With George, and is still building r.e.m. beauty, her cosmetics brand. And that’s just her professional life. Due to the nature of her celebrity, we also know that she got married and divorced in that time, and began and ended another relationship. It’s a lot.

It is also hard to think of a celebrity who has publicly been through more trauma than Ariana Grande: the Manchester Arena bombing at her show in 2017 and the death of her ex-boyfriend Mac Miller in 2018 took an immense toll. This is a woman who has repeatedly had to outwardly deal with things that most people would collapse under, even with privacy. Ariana has spoken about her struggles with PTSD and anxiety, and has been in therapy for more than a decade. All of this context makes you want to abide by her pleas for privacy.

But on seeing the footage of Ariana’s tour this week, her body more skeletal than ever before, the takeaway is hard to ignore: she needs a break. None of us can speak with true authority on what’s happening behind the scenes, but it should not be controversial to say that this is simply not what a person equipped to endure a world tour looks like.

When you scroll on any of the social media platforms, you will find two clear sides emerging. The first is those people expressing concern, caveating their comments with the promise that they come from a place of genuine worry. I feel more aligned with this group, even if the tone sometimes feels off. The second group is hardcore fans, and some variety of self-identifying feminists who argue that this is not our place to weigh in, that Ariana knows herself better than anyone else, and look, she’s smiling.

Most calls to leave a celebrity alone are a fair reminder that this person is also human and that our time is better spent focusing on our own lives. But ignoring what is so clearly an alarming health issue in the name of “live and let live” philosophy feels like a cop-out. This sort of mindset was built to protect women from the cruel, misogynistic tabloid culture of the 2000s, and from fatphobia. But here it is being weaponised by stan culture, the celebrity PR machine, and legacy media, who fail to comment, asking us to enter a state of cognitive dissonance and pretend that the extreme physical changes we see are natural. To question otherwise would be anti-feminist. At this point, we should really ask who the “never comment on women’s bodies” rule actually serves.

I think if a colleague showed up to work in the same condition, managers and HR teams would feel a responsibility to check in on the person. That’s not to say that hasn’t happened with Ariana, but it proves that being asked not to have thoughts on this situation is at best unrealistic, and at worst, harmful.

Part of why we are so hesitant to voice these thoughts, I think, is the way the politics of talking about body image has shifted in recent years. Commentators have argued that body positivity is dead, that woke is dead, and of course we’re now living through an Ozempic-fuelled cultural backdrop. Some people are doing daily Pilates and fibremaxxing and others are speaking up for soft bellies. The fragmented voices on body image make it hard to discern what is a “right” level of interest in other people’s bodies, and often leaves us saying nothing at all.

The widespread use of GLP-1s has also totally skewed our baseline for what normal weight loss looks like. In just a few years, drastic shrinking has become normalised, and without realising it, we’ve become accustomed to watching stars drop an excessive amount of weight. This new landscape means we run the risk of becoming numb to bodies that are shrinking due to other reasons, like trauma, illness, or exhaustion. We must not let the “trend” of weight loss write off our instinct to look out for people.

All of this knotty context makes you want to steer away from commenting on Ariana’s current situation. But back to the fame of it all: the footage from her tour is already being used on TikTok and elsewhere by girls seeking out pro-anorexia content, with much of it labelled as AriANA. This is obviously devastating, and feeding a new generation of eating disorders and the sort of Tumblr content we hoped was left behind in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

While Ariana’s 2023 video asked for privacy, we cannot afford to be silent on topics like this. The boundaries are always incredibly blurred, and sometimes we may make mistakes. But there needs to be space for a more responsible level of commenting, where we focus less on cruel speculation and more on acknowledging that the right thing to do is refusing to pretend everything is fine. Sometimes, the most empathetic thing we can do is refuse to look away.

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Updates from the Capsule universe you may have missed this week:

• Lorde’s new festival set is insane… some highlights!

• Also obsessed with a pregnant Japanese Breakfast vibing at the Gov Ball

• The Knicks content has been so fun to see

• Brandy Melville is not the only store closing its fitting rooms. Here’s why

• David Harbour weighed in on West End Girl…

• And Lily Allen wore an excellent outfit to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition Preview

• Tickets officially went on sale for the Phoebe Bridgers World Tour

• And we spoke to a girl who was at the phone-free MSG show to see what it was like

• Olivia Rodrigo is dressing like the 2010s

• Rihanna x EE72 by Szilveszter Makó… breathtaking of course

• No wedding photos yet, but some gorgeous details from Dua & Callum’s wedding

• And while we’re on romance: Gracie Abrams is in love and it shows 🫶

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This week, Tanis popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Tanis is a fast-rising alt-pop artist with over a million streams under her belt. She returns with ‘The Bad One’, a new single that turns personal chaos into an unapologetic, emotionally direct anthem. The track evolves the intimate, electronic-laced sound of her 2025 EP Just Some Stories, marking a bold and impactful new chapter for her.

🔥🔥🔥Hot🔥🔥🔥

Running a marathon, swimming in any body of water to cool off, pinstripes, mesh tops layered under a T-shirt, vegan leather, chainmail, eating clean, respect, coconut

Hot Not… 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️

Summer heatwaves with no air conditioning, cigarettes, littering, spiders making their presence known in your flat, excuses, superciliousness, gym selfies, having a phone conversation in public using your speakers

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📺 Watching: Backrooms in the cinema, Hayley Williams’ tour diary video, and this video essay on the feminist history of micro bangs.

📖 Reading: This piece reflecting on “I’m just a girl” baby-woman culture in The Cut. And sticking with the Hayley Williams theme: this lovely Substack essay written by her friend Elise Joseph James, describing how they came to love making art again after (ahem) hard times.

🎧 Listening to: you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, the new Olivia Rodrigo album, it’s a real Cruel World, the acoustic EP version of Holly Humberstone’s latest album, ‘the feeling’ by Steve Lacy, and ‘Red Bottoms’ by ADÉLA.