Ariana Grande Promotes "Sweetener" In NYC, Tributes Aretha Franklin

Source: PapCulture / Splash News

Ain’t she beautiful with all that hair down?

Ariana Grande was spotted in NYC looking TF good on this hot and muggy Friday afternoon. In thigh high boots and a sweatshirt, she isn’t necessarily dressed for the warm weather, but at this point we’re just here to appreciate her departure from the ponytail. The superstar singer’s new album, Sweetener, dropped today and as you can see in the photo above, she’s been repping it to the fullest with a cute bag we wouldn’t mind rocking at all. Posting the pic on IG, Ariana captioned the paparazzi moment “Happy Sweetener Day” while fans left comments about her luscious locks.

Back in 2014, Ariana explained that her hair was so badly damaged from dye she couldn’t wear it out. She wrote on social media:

“Since people give me such a hard time about my hair I thought I’d take the time to explain the whole situation to everybody. I had to bleach my hair and dye it red every other week for the first four years of playing Cat… as one would assume, that completely destroyed my hair. I now wear a wig on Sam & Cat. My real hair is back to brown and I wear extensions but I wear it in a pony tail because my actual hair is so broken that it looks absolutely ratchet and absurd when I let it down. I tried wigs, they looked RIDICULOUS. Tried a weave because I am working on a new project and want to try some different looks and literally wanted to rip my scalp off. So as annoying as it is for y’all to have to look at the same hairstyle all the time, it’s all that works for now (AND I’m comfortable for the first time in years)…. And trust me, it’s even more difficult for me to have to wait forever for my natural hair to grow back and to have to wear more fake hair than every drag queen on earth combined. So PLEASE gimme a break about the hair (or just don’t look at me lol). IT’S JUST HAIR AFTER ALL. There are way way way more important things. Love y’all very much.”

So, long story short, we don’t get to see her hair down often. But Ariana is a bad, bad b*tch with her pony too so win, win:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkiv9EJHJb_/?hl=en&taken-by=arianagrande

Aside from her highly-anticipated album dropping, our girl is also making headlines for her emotional tribute to the late Aretha Franklin on Thursday, August 17. While on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she performed “A Natural Woman” and it was so good, she got a standing ovation by the end of it. See that below, plus more photos of Ariana out and about in NYC on the flip.