Ariana Grande Says ‘Petal’ Showcases a Side of Her You’ve Never Seen Before: ‘Unfiltered Rage’

"I usually do a lot of rewrites and make things a little kinder," she said. "This time, I didn't." Ariana Grande at the 31st Annual Critics Choice Awards held at the Barker Hangar on Jan. 4, 2026, in Santa Monica, Calif. Tommaso Boddi/Variety Trending on Billboard Ariana Grande isn’t holding back on her new album, Petal, which the pop star said comes from a place of “unfiltered rage” in a new Apple Music clip posted Wednesday (July 29). Shared one day prior to “Petal Radio” airing on the platform Thursday (July 30) at 5 p.m. PT with a more in-depth conversation about the LP, the clip shows Grande sitting on the bed that is part of her stage design on the Eternal Sunshine Tour. When asked which of the 12 tracks on Petal she’s most excited for fans to hear, the Grammy winner couldn’t choose. “I’m equally excited to see how they react to every single song,” she said. “It pulls from many different parts of myself and yet, at the same time, it is very experimental and different for me. I wrote from a place that I don’t usually, which was like an unfiltered rage that I think we all feel sometimes.” “I usually am too shy to tap into that,” she continued. “This time, I didn’t filter as much as I usually do. I usually do a lot of rewrites and make things a little kinder. This time, I didn’t.” It’s not the first time Grande has hinted that Petal has a bit of a temper. In May, she posted a video of herself breaking down the message of the album in a meeting with her team, saying at the time: “It’s a little feral. It’s definitely from a place I’ve been maybe too shy or polite to tap into before. This kind of just feels like, ‘F–k it.’” Fans will have to wait until the full album drops on Friday (July 31) to get the full picture, but the snippets of Petal they’ve heard so far definitely live up to Grande’s description. On Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 lead single “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” for instance, she muses with brutal honesty, “I’ve held your projections when you’ve felt so insecure/ Tell me, why is it this way?/ Why you so hate to see women endure?/ Is it really my fault you all gave me your hearts of your own accord?” “Good luck on your way to hell,” the vocalist sings plainly on a clip from one song she posted on Instagram earlier in July. And on the title track — which she debuted live on stage at her first Eternal Sunshine Tour show in Montreal — she further addresses her relationship to being in the public eye. “All of my favorite stories end in some kind of catastrophe,” the lyrics read. “But I don’t need someone to save me/ ’Cause this music and I will never die.” Watch the clip from Grande’s conversation with Apple Music below. Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox Sign Up