Ariana Grande Explains How ‘Time & Therapy’ Helped Her Re-Embrace Her Old Music

Ariana Grande has complicated relationships with hot sauce and some of her old songs, but she powered through both on the latest episode of Hot Ones.

Appearing on the series’ season finale Thursday (Aug. 8), the pop star began by asking host Sean Evans for his expert opinion. “Where do you think I’ll sit on the scale from DJ Khaled to Lorde?” she asked. “I do my homework.”

Grande went on to barely break a sweat while eating the spicy vegan wings, save for an inaudible burp here and there. She kept her composure even as the Scoville levels increased, but at one point she admitted, “I think I’m learning that I don’t like hot sauce.”

The Grammy winner also answered questions about her Billboard 200-topping new album, Eternal Sunshine, working with Max Martin and doing stunts on the set of the Wicked films, the first of which arrives this November. “There was lots of bubble singing, which was very high up, and I wasn’t harnessed — I was just kind of there,” she revealed. “I had a lot of stunty singing, but nothing compares to Cynthia Erivo.”

“Watching Cynthia in her harness with a broom, a hat, wig, corset, dress — the whole thing — flipping upside down, flying around the set, singing ‘Defying Gravity’ every take like it’s nothing … just the most phenomenal thing I’ve ever seen,” Grande, who plays Glinda opposite Erivo’s Elphaba, continued. “We had to do some really insane and beautiful things for this film.”

The “We Can’t Be Friends” vocalist went on to open up about the “disheartening and disappointing” experience of having her unreleased music leak online. “It sucks,” she put it plainly. “And I am constantly trying to get to the bottom of like how people get stuff … that is very frustrating and feels very dehumanizing, and then the other side is like but I’m so grateful to be an artist that people care about and my fans want more of me so they’re going to these extremes to steal and break in.”

Toward the end of the episode, Evans asked Grande whether she’s tired of performing any of her old songs. The Victorious alum has been releasing music for more than a decade at this point, with nine of her songs reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 since her debut record, Yours Truly, dropped in 2013.

“That’s a natural thing that all artists can relate to,” she replied. “There was a time when it was hard for me to feel that same gratitude that I do now for certain songs and for the music … becoming a pop star is insane at 19 or 20, and I think that experience was sort of married to some of the songs a little bit. Or some of the songs that are more emotional, the experience that inspired them can be married to the music. But with time and therapy, we sort of are able to re-embrace, so I feel just really proud and grateful and happy when i hear them, where as I used to maybe hear it and cry.”

Watch Grande on Hot Ones above.