10 fun facts about Ariana Grande

Before her breakout role in Nickelodeon’s Victorious, Ariana made a splash in the Broadway show 13. Her portrayal of Charlotte in the Jason Robert Brown-composed musical scored her an award from the National Youth Theatre Association.

The teen show Victorious ended its run in 2013, but Ariana went on to star in its spin-off 'Sam & Cat.'

Ariana credits Gloria Estefan for inspiring her to follow her dreams of becoming a singer. She recalls the time she was on a cruise with her family and the Miami Sound Machine leader saw her perform, “she told me, ‘Honey I just wanted to let you know that you have so much more than I did at your age. You have to keep going because you were meant to do this.’”

The Florida-native loves giving back. In the summer of 2009, Ariana travelled with the charitable organization Broadway in South Africa to teach music and dance to children in a village located outside of Cape Town.

Her latest single “Problem”, from her sophomore album out this fall, has been on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for the past seven weeks.

Ariana’s fan base is strong! She has 19 million likes on Facebook, 16 million followers on Twitter and her video for “Problem” has been viewed over 38 million times on YouTube.

Her love for the 1960s is evident in her retro-inspired music video for “Problem” and even though she was born decades later, Ariana's iPod is full of tunes from mod groups like the Shangri-Las and The Chiffons. Why music from the 1960s? “My grandparents played it and I fell in love with it. It was more about romance and love, and less about getting drunk and going home with someone you don't know," she tells The Guardian.

Like many other young starlets, Ariana loves selfies. But the songstress has some rules, telling Glamour magazine, “don’t take too many selfies. You have to wait a few days in between. I know people who post multiple in a day and I’ll be like “Enough!” – there are only so many times in a day that I need to see your beautiful face.”

Ariana, who describes herself as awkward and weird, tells Billboard that her main goal is to “make music that makes me happy.” And when it comes to the celebrity factor, she says, “I don’t really like or pay attention to it. When I go down the red carpet I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack, pass out and die!”