Ariana Grande Wants to Make It Clear That No Woman Is Responsible for Her Ex's Shitty Behavior

When Ariana Grande and Mac Miller broke up recently, the pop star shared the news on her Instagram story. “I respect and adore him endlessly and am grateful to have him in my life in any form,” Grande wrote, adding about Miller that “I can’t wait to know you and support you forever and I’m so proud of you!!”

A week later, Miller was arrested for drunk driving after a hit-and-run (he struck a power pole), and some fans began to speculate that the Pittsburgh rapper was having trouble with the breakup, while rumors swirled that Grande is casually seeing SNL’s Pete Davidson. Today, Grande responded to one such fan theory on Twitter, to point out how out-of-touch it is.

“Mac Miller totalling his G wagon and getting a DUI after Ariana Grande dumped him for another dude after he poured his heart out on a ten song album to her called the divine feminine is just the most heartbreaking thing happening in Hollywood,” some guy wrote on Twitter on Monday. Grande responded to the implication that she was somehow the impetus for Miller’s reckless behavior:

“I am not a babysitter or a mother and no woman should feel that they need to be,” she wrote, adding that their relationship was “toxic” and that “Shaming / blaming women for a man’s ability to keep his shit together is a very major problem.”

Grande’s response blew up. It makes sense: In her note, Grande explains what should be extremely obvious—that women are in no way responsible for their partners’ behavior, simply because of their association to them. Grande says that she “tried to support his sobriety for years & prayed for his balance for years (and always will of course).” But the fact that she feels like she has to share that with the public should tell you something about the societal expectations of what women owe the men in their relationships.

The tweeter apologized, which, by my counts, literally never happens on Twitter: “I in no way think that you are the cause of Mac’s short comings [sic] we all have our demons to keep at bay and I truly worry about his well being just as a fan so I am sorry to minimize any of that or make it seem like a break up is a justifiable cause to go deep end [sic].”