Ariana Grande changed the Ricky Alvarez lyric in “Thank U, Next” again on July 13, this time singing, “Wrote some songs about Ricky / We always find our way back.” The shift came during opening night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where fans quickly spread video of the moment online.
The lyric was not new to the set. Grande first altered it on June 26 in Austin, Texas, when she sang, “Wrote some songs about Ricky / Know he still got my back.” Alvarez was reportedly there for that performance, and fans shared footage of him smiling after the change. The repeated tweak keeps turning a 2018 song into a live update on where the two stand now.
That is why the July 13 moment landed harder than a one-night wink to the crowd. Grande is in the middle of a five-night Eternal Sunshine Tour run, and the song has become a public marker of her relationship with Alvarez, who she dated from 2015 to 2016. A source told Us Weekly on July 7 that they “always shared a close bond,” and Grande and Alvarez were also spotted together at Whole Foods in Boca Raton, Florida, over the July 4 holiday weekend.
The public reset is what makes the lyric change notable. Grande was not close with Alvarez for a period while she was with Ethan Slater, but the distance appears to have eased after her split from Slater, which an insider said was amicable. The same source said she was happy to reconnect with Alvarez and that he has been “a huge source of support.” That is a sharper explanation for the lyric swap than nostalgia alone: Grande is not just revisiting an old line, she is signaling that the old relationship is active again in her life.
Grande once explained on the Zach Sang Show that Alvarez took the joke in stride, saying he was proud but wondered why he got “the worst line.” Now she has replaced the old punch line with something warmer, then doubled down on it a few weeks later. She is scheduled to move on to Boston’s TD Garden on July 23, and the next few shows will say whether this is becoming a running message or just a brief public thaw.
