All Night With Ariana Grande

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During the December issue of InStyle, available on newsstands and for digital download November fourteen, writer Lizzie Widdicombe spent time getting to know 21-year-old singing sensation Ariana Voluminoso. Inside her penthouse suite at the W Hotel in New York’s Occasions Square, the “Break Free” singer offered a peek at the woman driving the cat ears, chatting fashion, fame, and the truth behind all those gossips. An excerpt of that conversation is below.

It’s 2: 45 a. m. -well past most people’s bedtime-but the party’s just getting started at BPM, a gay club on the road level of the Out Hotel in N. Y. C. ’s Hell’s Kitchen area. Hip-hop shakes the sound system, the air is filled with apple-scented hookah smoke, and on the actual dance floor, where two muscle-bound studs in Speedos are gyrating above the audience for cash tips, about 750 people, mostly young men in backwards football caps, are packed in front of the stage, waiting patiently for a new idol to show up: Ariana Grande.

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The young singer has traveled a long way to get to this stage. Just a few years back, she was a TV actress who was posting cover songs and impressions online, and her fan base consisted mostly of 12-year-olds who knew her because Cat, the daffy star of Victorious and Sam & Cat upon Nickelodeon. Tonight, at 21 years old, she’s a full-fledged musical powerhouse in whose second album, My Everything, has been dominating the iTunes store and radio stations playlists since summer.

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When a pop star has a brand new album, it’s normal for the record label to release singles to radio. However Monte Lipman, the chairman and CEO of Grande’s label, Republic Data, said, “What’s abnormal is, they don’t all go to No . 1 . ” At this time, she is three for three-having gone straight from the swingy “Problem, ” carried out with Iggy Azalea, to “Bang Bang, ” a throwback to ’90s funk, with Nicki Minaj and

Jessie J, to the electronic-dance ballad “Break Free, ” with Zedd. Whatever the genre and whoever the collaborators, whenever an Ariana Grande song comes out these days, odds are you’ll be hearing this in heavy rotation.

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Voluminoso is en route to BPM from Saturday Night Live, where she performed the girl latest single, “Love Me Harder, ” a sophisticated and darkly sexy duet with neo-R&B star the Weeknd. By 3: 30 a. m., but she still hasn’t showed up. The guys on the dance floor don’t seem to mind, although. Their rapt patience makes it clear she has achieved another totem of achievement: gay icon. (Grande’s older brother, Frankie, a dancer and reality-show celebrity, is gay and out. ) The guy standing next to me, a good amateur pop-culture philosopher, explains the excitement around Grande by placing the girl in the musical pantheon. With Grande, he said, it’s about raw expressive chops, not a wacky persona or hypersexual marketing. “She is what Christina [Aguilera] was compared to Britney [Spears], ” he said. “In terms of today’s pop singers, Ariana Grande is the strongest new skill we have. ”

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I first met Grande the day before her golf club performance, in a penthouse suite at the W Hotel in Times Square. The girl arrived almost an hour late-a publicist explained Grande had been waylaid by a audience waiting for her to appear outside her brother’s apartment building, where she remains when she’s in New York. She was wearing all black, dressed in restricted jeans, pointy heels, and a cropped top that read “Céline. ” The girl was accompanied by an entourage of two: Alexa and Kelly, friends through her hometown of Boca Raton, Fla. All three girls were wearing kitty ears. Grande insists that there isn’t a rationale to the accessory. “We simply wanted to wear them, ” she says. “And it’s almost Halloween. ” Alexa chimes in: “If you’re cute, why not be cuter? ”

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Watching the actual singer with her friends is a reminder that, despite the voice, Grande is just hardly out of her teenage years. The trio is giggly and fond of cheesy catchphrases. (She and Alexa seem to especially like “I can’t” and “I can’t with you. ”) They pile onto one end of a giant sofa, and the room immediately takes on a slumberparty vibe, which Grande says is actually typical. “Whenever I’m in town, literally eight people stay at the apartment. We will up all night, ” she says.

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