Entertainment

Fans Think Ariana Grande Hid A Major Clue About Her New Album In The "Breathin'" Video

by Parry Ernsberger
Ariana Grande/YouTube; parkerapowell/Twitter

Ariana Grande never leaves her fans bored. Not only did she drop a new song over the weekend, but she released a new music video less than a week later. On Wednesday, the singer debuted another "Breathin'" video (this time without Piggy Smallz). And according to some eagle-eyed Arianators, Grande's new album tracklist may be hidden in the "Breathin'" video. Or in the very least, it's a pretty compelling fan theory. Go ahead and take a closer look at the departures board featured in her latest video.

Obviously, some of the words on the departure board are easier to make out than others. A little more than halfway down the list you can clearly see "NEEDY," then something followed by "ANNE," "REMEMBER," and "IMAGINE." Perhaps all the others just need to be unscrambled?

What makes this fan theory particularly compelling, though, is when you compare the words on the departure board to the — yet to be confirmed by anyone in Grande's camp — leaked track list that dropped last week via @CurrentPop on Twitter. FYI, "needy," "imagine," and "remember" are all on there, but not in the same order as before. There's no sight of anything with "anne" in it, but "thank u, next" definitely has all four of those letters (A, two Ns, E) inside it. Hmm.

The remaining lines with scrambled letters on the departure board never come full circle to create actual words. Seriously — you can pause and un-pause the video as many times as you want to. The letters just keep flipping and changing and it's all very confusing.

Let's change gears and talk about what we do know for a minute. We know that Grande's new album will be called Thank U, Next, as was the first, recently-released single. The star confirmed as much when asked by a fan via Twitter on Nov. 3. We also know via Twitter confirmations that there won't be an intro on Thank Uwhich is "breaking a tradition," as one fan noted — and that "Thank U, Next" will close the album out.

Grande teased a supposed second track from the album via her Instagram on Oct.4. According to MTV, the title of that song is "Needy," which would make sense based on the lyrics you can hear her singing.

Beyond that, we know that there won't be any collaborations on Thank U, and there will probably be 12 songs total. Oh, and that she'll be releasing the album before the end of the year. That's a big one.

So, if we head back to the departure board in the video for "Breathin'," we can probably assume two things. One, since we already know that "Needy" is the name of one of Grande's new tracks, "Remember" and "Imagine" probably are too; and two, the rest of the scrambled letters on the departure board are probably complete and utter nonsense, purposefully meant to send us down a rabbit hole.

Regardless, it's clear that Grande loves to drop hints and bits and pieces of information all over her social media. Arianators love decoding all of it, too. While we didn't get to the bottom of the Thank U track list this time around, keep your eyes peeled on her social media for more to come.