'Petal' is set to arrive over two years after the release of Grande's seventh studio album 'Eternal Sunshine'
Credit: Katia Temkin
NEED TO KNOW
- Ariana Grande announced her eighth studio album, Petal
- The new album follows 2024’s Eternal Sunshine, which she credited with helping her heal her relationship with music and fame
- Grande explained the upcoming record’s title in a statement
Ariana Grande’s new era is in bloom!
The pop star, 32, announced her eighth studio album Petal on Tuesday, April 28 and shared both its cover artwork and release date ahead of her upcoming Eternal Sunshine Tour, kicking off in June.
Set for a July 31 release via Republic Records, Petal is accompanied by a close-up black-and-white cover image featuring the Grammy winner smiling with hair covering part of her face.
Credit: Katia Temkin
She explained the album's title in a statement, noting that Petal represents "something that is full of life and growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging."
Grande previously sent her fans abuzz on April 8, when she shared an Instagram photo dump that showed her hard at work in the studio.
Credit: Katia Temkin
The carousel of images featured the Wicked star in various poses, including in front of a sound mixing board, with a microphone and scrolling through audio files on a computer.
In the final image, she sat on a chair with her arms up in a triumphant pose.
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The “We Can’t Be Friends” singer also tucked an image of dainty flowers into the mix, leading some fans to speculate if the blooms were in some way connected to the new album.
The new record follows her seventh album Eternal Sunshine, which came out in March 2024. She released a deluxe version of the album one year later.
Grande will begin her tour in support of the album on June 6, her first tour since Sweetener World Tour in 2019.
She previously praised Eternal Sunshine and her role in Wicked with having helped her “reclaim certain pieces” of herself, and get a grip on her relationship with fame.
“I’ve just been taking baby steps towards healing my relationship to music and touring, and I think my time with Glinda and with acting really helped me build the strength to be able to do that …I think it just held some traumas for me before, and I feel those dissipating, and that is such an extraordinarily beautiful thing,” she told Interview magazine in November.
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That same month, she appeared on the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast, and said the last decade of her life “will look very different” from what’s to come for her.
"I don't want to say any definitive things. I do know that I'm very excited to do this small tour, but I think it might not happen again for a long, long, long, long time," she said of her upcoming Eternal Sunshine Tour. "It's going to be beautiful and I'm so grateful that — I think that's why I'm doing it because I'm like, 'One last hurrah.' For now.”
Grande added that she feels “a lot more connected” to herself and her art at this current stage of her career.
"I spent so much time only doing pop music — but I grew up as a girl who loved musical theater and comedy,” she said. “So I think the thing that will be best for my soul and also my art and for what I'm giving to myself to, is if I'm chasing things that feel very right in the moment.”
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