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It looks like Ariana Grande is honoring her late ex and rapper Mac Miller once again. This time, her devoted fans, also known as Arianators, think the “Positions” singer honored the “Best Day Ever” singer through her R.E.M. Beauty line. In June, Ariana, 29, released a new collection called “chapter 3: on your collar”, which included four shades of hydrating lip oils. One of the lip oils is named “Picking Petals”, which as TikTok user Kaylie Vazquez pointed out, is a lyric in Mac and Ariana’s 2013 collaboration “The Way”, the song that launched Ariana into superstardom.
@kaylie_vazquez forever missed 🤍 #macmiller #arianagrande #rembeauty #makeup #beauty @r.e.m. beauty
“When you get the R.E.M. Beauty lip oil ‘Pickin Petals’ and realize Ari keeps dropping us little reminders of Mac,” Kaylie wrote over a video of herself applying the light pink lip oil to her lips with “The Way” playing over it. In the portion of the song she set to the video, Mac sang, “I’m thinking ’bout her every second, every hour/ Do my singing in the shower/ Picking petals off the flowers like / Do she love me, do she love me not?” Therefore, Arianators believe Ariana took Mac’s “picking petals” line and used it for her lip oil name.
Another TikToker named Nicole Hawkins left a comment under the video and pointed out that Ariana has already paid tribute to Mac with her makeup line. “and his favorite song from her album was R.E.M,” she commented with a white heart. Kaylie pinned the tidbit of information at the top of her comment section.
Ariana and Mac began dating in 2016 — three years after they first collaborated — but went their separate ways in 2018. Ariana quickly entered a whirlwind romance with Pete Davidson and got engaged to him in June. Mac died of a drug overdose a few months later in September. “By no means was what we had perfect, but, like, f—k. He was the best person ever, and he didn’t deserve the demons he had,” Ariana said to Vogue nearly a year after his tragic death. “I was the glue for such a long time, and I found myself becoming . . . less and less sticky. The pieces just started to float away.”
Since Mac’s death, Ariana has paid tribute to him and remembered his art fondly time and time again. “i adored you from the day i met you when i was nineteen and i always will. i can’t believe you aren’t here anymore. i really can’t wrap my head around it,” she wrote in an Instagram tribute one week after Mac was pronounced dead. “we talked about this. so many times. i’m so mad, i’m so sad i don’t know what to do. you were my dearest friend. for so long. above anything else. i’m so sorry i couldn’t fix or take your pain away. i really wanted to. the kindest, sweetest soul with demons he never deserved. i hope you’re okay now. rest.”
In 2020, she raved about his incredible artistic ability. “He was a person who gave literally every single second of his thought and time and life to his music. And I think that’s so evident in what he’s left us with and just how many incredible and different bodies of work, everything from Blue Slide Park, Kids, to all the way through Divine Feminine, to Swimming, to Circles, to everything in between,” the “thank u, next” songstress gushed in a 2020 interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “It has to be, it’s just such a beautiful gift I think that he kind of touched the world with, and I think the thing he’d want most is for us to just appreciate it and not forget about it.”
Then, in 2021, Ariana, who is now married to realtor Dalton Gomez, included Mac in a video playing as she sang “The Way” during her Fortnite concert on Aug. 6, 2021. It seems that Ariana’s makeup line is just the latest way she is honoring the talented Pittsburgh, Pa. native, and it will likely not be her last.