In the first verses of her song "Thank U, Next," Ariana Grande name-dropped four of her exes: Big Sean, Ricky Alvarez, Pete Davidson, and Mac Miller. The first three got a Burn Book page about them in her music video's Mean Girls tribute; Miller, who passed away in September, did not.
As some fans noticed, when Grande sang her verse about Miller ("Wish I could say thank you to Malcolm/'Cause he was an angel"), Grande looked up to the sky. But her choice to leave Miller's name out of her book was deliberate and announced before the video came out.
Grande wrote on Twitter that "M ain’t in the book he next to my bed," she wrote.
While the video didn't show a close-up shot of the photos on her desks in her rom com bedrooms (she had three different ones: one for Mean Girls, one for Bring It On, and one for Legally Blonde), it's clear that Grande put a lot of thought into her decision of how to pay tribute to Miller.
Miller and Grande dated for two years, until this May. In her first written Instagram tribute to Miller after his death, she wrote candidly about how much he meant to her:
i adored you from the day i met you when i was nineteen and i always will. i can’t believe you aren’t here anymore. i really can’t wrap my head around it. we talked about this. so many times. i’m so mad, i’m so sad i don’t know what to do. you were my dearest friend. for so long. above anything else. i’m so sorry i couldn’t fix or take your pain away. i really wanted to. the kindest, sweetest soul with demons he never deserved. i hope you’re okay now. rest.
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