Ariana Grande's headline appearance at Coachella was a "mindf**k".
Ariana Grande
The 'No Tears Left to Cry' hitmaker headlined the festival earlier this year but found the experience difficult because it reminded her so much of her late ex-boyfriend Mac Miller, whose real name was Malcolm McCormick and who died from an accidental overdose last September.
She tearfully said: "I never thought I'd even go to Coachella.
"I was always a person who never went to festivals and never went out and had fun like that. But the first time I went was to see Malcolm perform, and it was such an incredible experience. I went the second year as well, and I associate...heavily...it was just kind of a mindf**k, processing how much has happened in such a brief period."
The 26-year-old singer tries to be as "open" as possible with her fans when she's finding things tough but keeps some things hidden, which she thinks they can sense.
She told America's Vogue magazine: "I've been open in my art and open in my DMs and my conversations with my fans directly, and I want to be there for them, so I share things that I think they'll find comfort in knowing that I go through as well.
"But also there are a lot of things that I swallow on a daily basis that I don't want to share with them, because they're mine. But they know that. They can literally see it in my eyes. They know when I'm disconnected, when I'm happy, when I'm tired. It's this weird thing we have. We're like fucking E.T. and Elliott."
Ariana admitted she still struggles to find the words to talk about some of the events of the last few years, including Mac's death and the shocking terrorist attack that hit her Manchester concert in May 2017.
She said "I'm a person who's been through a lot and doesn't know what to say about any of it to myself, let alone the world. I see myself onstage as this perfectly polished, great-at-my-job entertainer, and then in situations like this I'm just this little basket-case puddle of figuring it out."
And after the tragedies that have rocked her life, the '7 Rings' singer is also wary of celebrating the "beautiful" things in her life because she can't trust that they'll stay that way.
She said: "I have to be the luckiest girl in the world, and the unluckiest, for sure. I'm walking this fine line between healing myself and not letting the things that I've gone through be picked at before I'm ready, and also celebrating the beautiful things that have happened in my life and not feeling scared that they'll be taken away from me because trauma tells me that they will be, you know what I mean?"
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