Ariana Grande Responds to ‘7 Rings’ Backlash

Ariana Grande released her latest single, “7 Rings,” on Friday, Jan. 18, and the track immediately caused controversy, with multiple artists accusing Grande of stealing their material. In addition, Grande is also receiving backlash for posting a fan’s review of the song she posted to her Instagram Story.

“7 Rings” contains a line that reads “You like my hair? / Gee, thanks, just bought it,” and the fan had written, “White women talking about their weaves is how we’re gonna solve racism.”

Grande reposted that comment to her own story, writing that she has “so much love” for the user in a potential misunderstanding the possibly sarcastic nature of the person’s post.

Many of Grande’s followers did not take kindly to the singer’s message, promptly calling Grande out for the post, which she later deleted. Some fans believed Grande’s response to be racially insensitive, and the original repost later appeared on the account The Shade Room.

After the backlash, Grande headed to The Shade Room’s comments section to issue an apology, explaining her original intention when sharing the post. She also thanked her fans for opening up a dialogue into the issue.

“Hi hi,” she wrote. “I think her intention was to be like… yay a white person disassociating the negative stariotype [sic] that is paired with the word ‘weave’… however I’m so sorry my response was out of pocket or if it came across the wrong way. Thanks for opening the conversation and like… to everyone for talking to me about it. It’s never my intention to offend anybody.”

Despite the controversy, “7 Rings” is already a hit for the Florida native and quickly broke Spotify’s record for most streams in the first 24 hours with nearly 15 million streams.

The track is the third song Grande has released from her upcoming album, which she recently revealed on Twitter will be released on Feb. 8. That means the 25-year-old will have released two albums in six months, with her most recent project, Sweetener, having arrived in August 2018.

“Two albums in six months huh. that’s deep. love u. talk sooon,” Grande tweeted on Monday, Jan. 21, adding that the upcoming album will be available for fans to preorder on Friday, Jan. 25, the same day the cover and track list will be revealed.

Previously released songs from the project include “thank u, next” and “imagine.” Grande’s new album is currently reported to be titled Thank U, Next.

Photo Credit: YouTube / Ariana Grande