After a year darkened by gossip about her love life, Ariana Grande stepped into the light on her 2024 album Eternal Sunshine. And those sunbeams seemed to illuminate a scandal that nobody knew about. As fans parsed through the heavy lyrics to Grande’s new tracks, a few pointed words stood out among the rest. Namely, it sure sounds like Grande is alleging her ex-husband, Dalton Gomez, was cheating on her when they were married.
A lot about Grande’s two-year marriage to Gomez is unknown. Their relationship was fast-tracked by global lockdown, as they got engaged just months after they started dating in 2020. By the summer of 2021, they were married, but their wedded bliss took a turn in 2023 as they filed for divorce amid rumors that Grande had started dating her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater.
The bulk of Eternal Sunshine is focused on Grande’s recent romantic experiences, whether she’s cooing love songs like “Supernatural” or laying claim to her man in “The Boy Is Mine.” But the cuts that really stand out are the ones that seem to take aim at Gomez. On revelatory tracks like “True Story” and “Eternal Sunshine,” Grande seems to imply that Gomez cheated on her. Even some of the production moments are suspicious, as fans noticed a sonic allusion to Beyoncé’s Lemonade, the album where the pop star famously exposed her husband’s infidelity.
And Grande leaned into what went wrong with Gomez even more descriptively in her new released Brighter Days Ahead bonus tracks. Here are the songs that seem to dish out the juiciest tea on what really happened between them.
“True Story”
The most pointed breakup track on the album, Grande asserts that she’s finally ready to tell the truth about a failed relationship. She details how her ex would play games with her heart, and hid late-night encounters from her: “Turnin’ like a dime, wastin’ all their time / Sneakin’ like a creep in the night.”
Grande also addresses how she handled the fallout from the breakup, as the media painted her as the “villain” during the drama. She tells her ex she’ll take on the “bad girl” role, implying that he must not have been so innocent himself: “I’ll play the villain if you need me to / I know how this goes, yeah.”
“Eternal Sunshine”
The title track may sound sunny, but it includes Grande’s darkest allegations of all. “I’ve never seen someone lie like you do / So much, even you start to think it’s true,” Grande sings at the start of the song.
As the confessional continues, Grande make her most explicit claims about an ex cheating on her in her own bed. “Now she’s in my bed, layin’ on your chest,” Grande sings, later adding, “Hope you feel alright when you’re in her.”
The singer mourns how she completely opened up to her partner, but he manipulated her feelings: “I showed you all my demons, all my lies / Yet you played me like Atari.”
“Don’t Wanna Break Up Again”
As the name suggests, “Don’t Wanna Break Up Again” focuses on Grande’s internal struggles over letting go of a past romance. In hindsight, she can now recognize that she was the one putting all of the work into the relationship: “I made it so easy / Spent so much on therapy / Blamed my own codependency / But you didn’t even try.”
The line that has Grande’s fans most upset is when she describes crying in her bed, but rather than console her, her partner turns the volume on the television up to drown out her sobs: “I fall asleep cryin’ / You turn up the TV / You don’t wanna hear me.”
“We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)”
Another emotional track about the confusing feelings at the end of a relationship, Grande sings about having to hide her truth from a world that misunderstands her: “Me and my truth, we sit in silence.”
She alleges that a former partner “made” her into an object that she doesn’t like: “Know that you made me / I don’t like how you paint me, yet I’m still here hanging.” It’s familiar imagery for Grande, who also described herself as a misguided painting in her 2019 song “In My Head.” In that song, rumored to be inspired by her breakup with Pete Davidson, Grande lamented having painted herself to be someone she’s not for a relationship. It sounds like in her latest breakup, it was her partner painting her to be a certain way.
“Intro (End Of The World) [Extended]”
It’s Grande’s Brighter Days Ahead deluxe tracks that really dig into how she moved on from her divorce. On the extended version of “Intro (End of the World),” she gets specific about her ex is living in California, out of her life: “Now you’re long gone in Cali / And me, I’m still unpacking / Why I even allowed you on the flight.”
Much of the added lyrics reference the memory-erasing plot of 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as Grande puts the grief she once had over the relationship in her past. “I broke your heart because you broke mine / So me, I am the bad guy / ‘Cause I’d already grieved you / And you started to realize / I do need ya, I did / I wish I could un-need ya, so I did.”
“Twilight Zone”
In her most explicit track about using music to get out her feelings about the Gomez divorce, Grande contemplates why she still has such a fascination with writing about the breakup despite being over it. She deduces the reason might be that she “just can’t believe you happened.” With fresh insight, Grande admits she doesn’t want to write about this situation any more:
“Why do I still protect you? / Pretend these songs aren’t about you / Hope this might be the last one / ‘Cause I’m not foolin’ anyone.”
“Past Life”
As Grande realizes her former husband is no longer in her world, she celebrates her newfound freedom in “Past Life.” Finally free to lose herself to the “rhythms of the night,” Grande revels in the understanding that she’s truly moved on:
“Always wondered what would happen if I let you lose me / Always wondered what would happen if I let myself need more / Might f*ck around and elevate my expectations / Now I’m fine to leave you in a past life.”
“Hampstead”
As fans already knew from the title, Brighter Days Ahead’s final song is its most revealing about Grande and Gomez’s breakup. The track is titled after the area of London Grande stayed in while filming Wicked. It’s where she and Gomez were publicly seen together for the last time.
“I left my heart at a pub in Hampstead,” Grande opens the ballad. The line appears to have a double meaning, both referencing the place where she ended things with Gomez, and the same location where her romance with co-star Ethan Slater began. She reveals that despite the public criticism she’s had to ensure, she doesn’t regret the decision: “Threw away my reputation, but saved us more heartache.”
In the second verse, Grande reflects on her transformative year in Hampstead, noting that her one-time love is now nothing more than fodder for her lyrics: “I don’t remember too much of the last year / But I knew who I was when I got here / ‘Cause I’m still the same but only entirely different / And my lover’s just some lines in some songs.”
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