Ariana Grande has openly shared that portraying Glinda in the highly anticipated Wicked films has been a profoundly healing experience for her as an artist. However, in a recent candid interview, the acclaimed pop star revealed that a major factor in rekindling her passion for music was her decision to sign with a new management team, moving on from her previous association with Scooter Braun.

In a New York Times profile published on November 5th, Grande spoke frankly about her past dissatisfaction with her music career prior to being cast in Wicked a few years ago. She recalled a period when she believed she would never embark on another tour, citing the exhausting nature of her 2019 Sweetener trek. “There was something broken about my relationship to pop music that was healed recently through the time away,” she explained. Grande elaborated on the overwhelming and sometimes perilous aspects of her career, stating, “I think it got away from me in a way I didn’t expect. There’s a thing that comes along with your dreams coming true that feels dangerous at times … Nothing prepares you for what comes with it. Until quite recently, it was really hard for me to navigate and I think it stripped a lot of joy out of this for me.”

Despite her earlier reservations about music, the Grammy-winning artist is now enthusiastically preparing to return to touring in 2026 with a smaller tour in support of her 2024 Billboard 200-topping album, Eternal Sunshine—an album she created after having previously thought she would never produce new music again. Grande has consistently emphasized that redirecting her focus toward acting, after years of dedicating herself primarily to her pop career, was crucial for her well-being. During her NYT interview, she also subtly indicated that her previous professional collaborators had discouraged her from finding a harmonious balance between her dual passions. “By the way, I have a different team now,” she said, adding, “Said with love, but that was a piece.”

This interview comes more than two years after Grande’s departure from SB Projects, where Scooter Braun had managed her on and off since 2013. Her exit coincided with similar departures of other high-profile Braun clients, including Demi Lovato and J Balvin. In June 2024, Braun confirmed his retirement from music management, expressing ongoing support for the artists he had once guided, including Justin Bieber and Tori Kelly. During an appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast, he reflected, “To see Justin move forward and succeed, to see Ariana with what’s happened with Wicked in this past year … Everybody that I’ve ever had a chance to work with, to see them go on and do great things on their own, it’s awesome.”

Shortly after ending her partnership with SB Projects, Ariana Grande signed with Brandon Creed’s company, Good World Management. According to Billboard, Grande’s primary focus was to center “the focus to be her art and [Creed] puts her artistry and vision before anything else.” Two years later, this new management has enabled her to fully embrace her artistic vision. “I’ve never felt this connected to my art or inspired, and that’s just been such a tremendous gift,” she told the NYT. “It’s like, oh, I don’t actually have to take on those things that were projected onto me. I can focus on my art, and that can be a separate entity. But I had to give myself the permission to think that.”