Key Takeaways
- Ariana Grande drops the bloody, horror-style "Petal" video alongside her new album, playing Pepper, an aspiring actor who snaps on a panel of cruel industry suits.
- After being labeled "not good enough," "DESPERATE," and "inauthentic," Pepper fires up a garden chainsaw and massacres the executives before it's revealed to be a movie shoot where she lands the lead role.
- Shot entirely on high-res VistaVision film, the 6-minute-50-second clip channels the "unfiltered rage" Grande says fuels Petal, arriving as she wraps her Eternal Sunshine Tour ahead of a 10-night O2 Arena run in London in 2026.
Ariana Grande, to coincide with the release of her new album Petal, has unleashed the gory music video for its title track — watch it above.
Directed by Christian Breslauer, the hard-hitting video runs over double the length of the song and features the singer-songwriter as Pepper, an aspiring actor who auditions for a role she's told she's not good enough for.
The song gets interrupted as she's berated by a group of comically evil suits with exaggerated prosthetic makeup, but instead of letting their criticism get to her, she responds by revving up a chainsaw and taking it to the suits, brutally attacking them as she's showered in blood. As fingers land on the floor, Grande calmly exits the audition, still covered in blood, and is greeted by applause and admiration from all the other women auditioning.
The video was shot entirely on VistaVision, a high-resolution 35-mm film format that has been used to great effect in a number of recent movies, including One Battle After Another, Bugonia, and The Brutalist. Even some of the third and final season of Euphoria was partially shot in VistaVision, becoming the first TV series to ever utilize the format.
Grande is currently on tour in support of her previous album, Eternal Sunshine. Having almost wrapped, the tour will conclude with 10 shows at the O2 Arena in London on August 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, and September 1, 2026.
