Ariana Grande‘s smash hit, the breakup song "thank u, next" was her first-ever No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. While many think the track was recorded in one session, Rolling Stone reports that the song actually had three different versions in case her engagement to Pete Davidson ended.
During a recent interview on the Zach Sang Show, Ariana shared:
"We had like three different versions of the song. I’m like super shy when it comes to pitching wild things, so I was like, ‘Is it insane if I name people and thank them directly in the song?’"
Though Grande did not mention Davidson in the clip, her producer and frequent collaborator Tommy Brown did explain that in the studio the original version of the song was the one they should use. He went on to express that she "needed to try different approaches."
According to Rolling Stone, Ariana ultimately shared more later on in the interview:
"In my relationship at the time, things were like up and down and on and off, and so I didn’t know what was going to happen and then we got back together. So I had to make a different version of it, and then we broke up again, so we ended up going with that verse. There’s a version where I was getting married, there’s a version where I’m not getting married, there’s a version with nothing. We’re not talking about anything, but we all knew that the first version was gonna be the version we ultimately went with."
There’s currently no word on if the other recordings will be released. Stay tuned here as more news emerges. Check out the clip below.
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