Ariana Grande

Ariana Grande-Butera was born on June 26, 1993, in Boca Raton, Florida, to Joan Grande, the Brooklyn-born CEO of Hose-McCann Communications, a marine communications equipment manufacturer the Grande family has owned since 1964, and Edward Butera, a graphic design firm owner based in Boca Raton. Of Italian descent, Grande has described her heritage as Sicilian and Abruzzese. She has an older half-brother, Frankie Grande, an entertainer and producer. Her parents separated when she was eight or nine years old, and she maintained a close relationship with her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Grande. The family relocated from New York to Florida before her birth.

Grande began performing at a young age, taking on the title role in Annie with the Fort Lauderdale Children's Theater and appearing in that organization's productions of The Wizard of Oz and Beauty and the Beast. She attended Pine Crest School and later North Broward Preparatory School. At age eight, she sang the national anthem at a Florida Panthers home game against the Chicago Blackhawks on January 16, 2002, and performed with orchestras including South Florida's Philharmonic, Florida Sunshine Pops, and Symphonic Orchestras.

Grande made her Broadway debut in 2008, cast as cheerleader Charlotte in the musical 13. That same year, she expressed an early ambition to record an R&B album upon first meeting with her managers in Los Angeles. Her work in 13 led directly to her television career, as she was cast alongside fellow cast member Elizabeth Gillies in the Nickelodeon series Victorious, which premiered in March 2010 to 5.7 million viewers, the second-largest audience for a live-action series debut in the network's history. In the show, set at a performing arts high school, Grande played Cat Valentine, a role she continued in the iCarly and Victorious spin-off Sam & Cat, which ran from 2013 to 2014 and co-starred Jennette McCurdy.

While filming Victorious, Grande uploaded recordings of herself singing covers by Adele, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey to YouTube. A contact of Republic Records CEO Monte Lipman discovered the videos and forwarded them to Lipman, who subsequently signed Grande to a recording contract. Her debut studio album, Yours Truly, was released on August 30, 2013, a pop and R&B record influenced by 1950s doo-wop that debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. Her next two albums, My Everything (2014) and Dangerous Woman (2016), incorporated electronic elements and achieved international success, producing singles including "Problem," "Break Free," "Bang Bang," "One Last Time," "Into You," and "Side to Side."

Personal experiences shaped Grande's subsequent albums Sweetener (2018) and Thank U, Next (2019), both of which drew on trap music. Thank U, Next produced two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100: the title track and "7 Rings." Her R&B album Positions (2020), along with the collaborations "Stuck with U" and "Rain on Me," gave her the most number-one debuts in the United States. After a period away from recording, she released Eternal Sunshine (2024), an album exploring dance music that yielded the US number-one songs "Yes, And?" and "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)." Six of her albums have reached number one on the Billboard 200, and nine of her songs have topped the Billboard Hot 100.

Grande returned to acting with the political satire Don't Look Up (2021) and portrayed Glinda in the fantasy musical film Wicked (2024), earning an Academy Award nomination for the role. She is set to reprise the character in the sequel Wicked: For Good (2025). Publications including Rolling Stone and Billboard have recognized her as one of the greatest artists in history, and Time named her to its list of the world's 100 most influential people in both 2016 and 2019. Her accolades include three Grammy Awards, a Brit Award, two Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, thirteen MTV Video Music Awards, and 40 Guinness World Records. She is estimated to have sold over 90 million records worldwide and was the highest-paid female musician in 2020. Her business ventures include the cosmetics brand R.E.M. Beauty and a fragrance line that has generated over one billion dollars in global retail sales.