Ariana Grande’s ‘True Story’ Is Actually ‘Based on All Untrue Events’

“True Story” (stylized in all lowercase) is the seventh track on Ariana Grande’s seventh studio album, Eternal Sunshine, originally intended for a Seth MacFarlane TV show. An acapella version of the song was released on Grande’s website on March 9, 2024 as part of the “slightly deluxe” edition of Eternal Sunshine.

What’s real and what isn’t in Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine track “true story”? After all, she opens the song by singing, “This is a true story about all the lies / You fantasized ’bout you and I / This is a true story about all the games / I know you play.”

On the surface, it seems like she’s addressing how the press and the public have vilified her based on rumors about her personal life. “I’ll play the villain if you need me to,” she says in the first verse.

However, in an interview with Zane Lowe yesterday, Grande clarified that the song is “an untrue story based on all untrue events.” That also plays into Eternal Sunshine being a concept album. Grande said of writing this project, “You can pull from your truth, you can pull from a concept, you can pull from a film, from a story you’re telling. From a story about a relationship that a friend told you. Art is really, it can come from anywhere.”

Listen to “true story,” and read the full lyrics

She also noted that “true story,” which she wrote with Max Martin, sets up the following track, “the boy is mine.” “It’s like, okay I’ll play the bad girl, here’s your bad girl anthem. That’s why they’re in that order in the track list,” she explained.

And while a song titled “the boy is mine” might only fuel more speculation about her dating life, Grande said that song is mostly for her fans. “This is a very bad idea, I think, but there is a large group of my fans that really, they do love a bad girl anthem,” she said. “And this is, I think I kind of an elevated version of that.” The same could probably be said of “true story,” too.