Ariana Grande Updates 'Thank U, Next' Lyric for Ricky Alvarez at London Tour Closer
At the final Eternal Sunshine Tour show in London, Ariana Grande sang a modified lyric in 'Thank U, Next' referencing Ricky Alvarez as her last love. This continues a pattern of lyric changes that hint at their rekindled romance. Grande also debuted a new song during the emotional concert.
Grande’s London finale marked the tenth O2 Arena show of the tour, where she also gave “Nowhere, Nobody” its live premiere. The concert closed a trek supporting her eighth album, *petal*, which debuted atop the Billboard 200 in July with 295,000 equivalent units. Her revised “Thank U, Next” verse follows a July Brooklyn performance where she sang about always finding her way back to Alvarez, a former backup dancer she dated from 2015–2016. The original 2018 single topped the Hot 100.
These lyric tweaks may deepen fan engagement by turning live shows into interactive puzzles, where audiences decode personal references in real time. The public rekindling could normalize revisiting past relationships, but it also risks oversharing private life for commercial gain. Younger listeners might model their own romantic expectations on celebrity narratives, though the impact likely stays within pop-culture discourse rather than broader social behavior.