Did Ariana Grande finish high school? The singer got her first music gig at 15

Ariana Grande is a global pop icon today. The singer-songwriter, who has also dabbled in acting, started focusing on her musical career at the age of 17 but had been working on other entertainment gigs even before that.

The Love Me Harder singer completed her primary education at the Pine Crest School in Boca Raton, Florida, and then joined the North Broward Preparatory School (NBPS) for high school.

Because Ariana Grande's career started when she was still a teenager, the singer-songwriter did not get to finish high school conventionally. However, even when Grande could no longer attend regular classes, she continued to be enrolled at the school, getting study materials at home to read with tutors until she finished high school.

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Ariana Grande was cast in a Broadway musical in 2008

Ariana Grande got her first gig when she was still a school-goer. The Side to Side singer was cast in a Broady Musical titled 13, in which she played the character of a cheerleader named Charlotte.

Having joined the cast in January 2008, Grande also sang parts of the musical's final number - A Little More Homework To Do. Brand New You - a song she sang in the show alongside Brynn Williams - was initially supposed to be the finale but was replaced later. Despite that, the track was a hit among teenagers for years to come.

After Grande joined 13, the musical went on for roughly a year, finally concluding on January 4, 2009, after doing 105 official performances. According to Refinery29, the show made $3 million even by selling only 52% of its total seats.

In 2022, a movie adaption of the show was made - titled 13: The Musical - in which Khiyla Aynne played the character that Grande had played in the Broadway show. The movie received an IMDb rating of 5.2/10.

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Grande released her debut studio album after wrapping up Nickelodeon's TV show Victorious

Soon after 13 concluded on Broadway, Ariana Grande was cast in another acting gig, but this time, it was a TV show airing on Nickelodeon. Grande played the character of Cat Valentine on the sitcom - a sweet but dim-witted girl who attended Hollywood Arts school alongside Tori Vega (played by Victoria Justice) - the protagonist of the show.

Victorious concluded on Nickelodeon in 2013 after running for four seasons, but Ariana Grande was just getting started. In 2011 alongside filming for the sitcom, the Bang Bang singer had already released her first single track - Put Your Hearts Up. The next year, Grande also sang in a duet with MIKA.

The year Grande wrapped up Victorious, she was already ready with her debut studio album - Yours Truly - which was released in August 2013. With 138,000 copies of the album sold in the first week itself, Yours Truly peaked at number one on the US Billboard 200 albums chart.

Fast forward to 2024, Ariana Grande released her seventh studio album - Eternal Sunshine - in March. In a February interview with Elle, the singer-songwriter revealed how the album would cover the feelings of her breakup with Dalton Gomez, further confessing:

"The loss and grief that you hear some of the album, some of the heartbreak stuff, there was so much love and transparency... I tried to make sure it was kind and giving credit for trying and for the goodness that there was."

She added:

"So, that was a tricky balance for me because I definitely had some sessions where I was writing more emotionally and reactively but that’s also very human so I didn’t want to erase all of it.”

Further in the interview, Grande said she hoped that this album would quiet all the rumors about her breakup, saying:

"I think it does. I think it’s the absolute worst idea. I’m so nervous because pieces of it touch on things that are real and then pieces of it are also just like, yeah, part of the concept. So what is that separation, and it’s so scary to leave it up to these selective memory people to decipher. It’s scary, but I digress. Too late, the vinyls have been printed."

Grande's seventh studio album also opened at the US Billboard 200 at number one, much like her debut album.