Err, what? Ariana Grande wasn't as squeaky clean during her childhood as she is today. The "Problem" singer opened up about being "a very weird little girl" while growing up in Boca Raton, Fla., in the latest issue of Billboard magazine.
"I'm literally the most sardonic person you've ever met," the 21-year-old said, noting that she went through a "dark and deranged" stage in the past.
"I always wanted to have skeleton face paint on or be wearing a Freddy Krueger mask, and I would carry a hockey stick around. I was like a mini-Helena Bonham Carter," she told the mag. "For my fifth birthday party we had a Jaws theme and all my friends left crying. I mean, I still am that way. But when I was little it was more concerning. There was a stage, when I was 3 or 4, where my mom thought I might grow up to be a serial killer."
She also had to deal with her hypoglycemia from a young age. "Sometimes I'll get anxious if I forget to eat," she told the mag. "When I was a little girl, I would turn into the Tasmanian devil."
Grande was raised Catholic, but later turned to Kabbalah like one of her idols, Madonna. "[I] started practicing my own things when I was around 12 years old," she told Billboard. "As a fellow Kabbalist, I know how hard it is to exercise those tools in your everyday life. Especially in a world where everything is so egocentric and all you do is talk about yourself and promote yourself."
The former Nickelodeon star has come a long way since her Krueger and Jaws days. Grande is currently gearing up for her sophomore album, My Everything, and just released "Bang Bang" with Nicki Minaj and Jessie J. Despite her success, however, her favorite downtime activity is just "going to the beach at night" in her hometown. Lately, though, she's been cheering on her half-brother Frankie Grande, 31, who is currently starring on CBS' Big Brother.
"[It's] excruciating, because I have no communication with him, and he's missed so many things," she said of Frankie. "My brother was always the one in the spotlight and I liked that," she recalled growing up. "It was like he was the entertainment for me."
