Ariana Grande Looks Completely Different Without Hair Extensions

Ariana Grande is known for switching positions in the title track of her sixth album — but she has switched up her hair even more. From rising to fame as a red-headed actress to sporting a sleek brown ponytail to dying her hair blonde for "Wicked," Grande has tried nearly every hairstyle under the sun. She frequently relies on hair extensions to make her hair appear longer and fuller. But she occasionally gives fans a peek behind the curtain by posting unfiltered pictures of her natural locks and her makeup-free face on social media. She even wrote a song about it, appropriately called "My Hair."

Grande has had an extensive hair evolution since becoming a superstar, but before her big break, her hair was actually curly. During her Broadway run of the musical "13" in 2008, Grande was seen each night with her natural tresses: dark brown in color and with thick curls. She proudly wore her hair in its truest form without the extensions, bold colors, or updos that she would come to know and love.

People who saw Ariana Grande's Broadway debut back in 2008 were in for a treat — they saw the superstar before her rise to fame and with her natural hairstyle, which consists of stunning thick curls.

Grande's stylist Alyx Lui has since tried to bring back a little nostalgia by caring for Ari's natural hair. In 2019, Lui posted a picture on Instagram of the singer lying down and sporting dark, thick curls. The hair falls just to her shoulders but looks voluminous and beautiful. They captioned the picture, "Natural curls coming in strong with a little TLC." 

Grande's mother, Joan Grande, has also taken to X (formerly known as Twitter) to share her love of her daughter's natural hair. "Your natural hair/curls is a world of its own ... a magnificent beauty you are inside and out/ made up or natural ... I love you," she wrote to Ariana in 2020.  

In February 2019, Ariana posted an adorable throwback pic of herself at just five years old. Young Ari had the biggest, cutest smile complete with picturesque curls covering her whole head. And apparently, not everything has changed from when Grande was that precious little girl. Grande captioned the photo (via Cosmopolitan), "If I'm honest ... this is still exactly what I look like without lashes and my pony." 

As Ariana Grande was making the switch from acting to singing, she became known for her high notes and recognizable ponytail. She wore her hair in an updo for music videos, talk show appearances, music performances, and all over social media. The ponytail quickly became Grande's trademark, but what people didn't know is that Ari's ponytail initially happened because of the damage that had already been done to her hair.

The pop starlet took to Facebook in 2014 to explain how her role on the Nickelodeon show "Victorious" changed her hair forever. She walked her followers through the rigorous hair care routine she had to endure. "I had to bleach my hair and dye it red every other week for the first 4 years of playing Cat ... as one would assume, that completely destroyed my hair," she explained. "I now wear a wig on 'Sam & Cat.' My real hair is back to brown and I wear extensions but I wear it in a [ponytail] because my actual hair is so broken that it looks absolutely ratchet and absurd when I let it down." 

Grande added that when she began to work on projects following her run on Nickelodeon, she wanted to experiment with her hair — although it wasn't easy. She said wigs didn't look good when she wore them, but she tried a weave for a new project "and literally wanted to rip my scalp off." It's no wonder she opted for a simple ponytail for so many years.

In her hit song "7 Rings," Ariana Grande famously sang, "You like my hair? Gee thanks, just bought it." And it appears that she was speaking the truth. Grande and her fans alike often associate different eras of the star's career with her varying hairstyles. When she rose to fame as a pop star, Grande was happy to be known for her famous ponytail — almost as if the recognizable hairstyle symbolized her influence on the music world. She told Byrdie in 2016 that she considered her ponytail to be exciting and unpredictable. "Every time I put my hair up, it's like a surprise," she said (via Teen Vogue). "Like, I forget how much I love it, and then I tie it back and I'm like, 'I love this look! Ooh, girl!' Every time I tie it up is like the first time. It's like true love."

And Grande has continued to change up her hair for different moments in her career. For her Oscar-nominated role in the movie "Wicked," Grande went a bit method with her acting, all the way down to the color of her tresses. Grande told Vogue in 2024 that she really felt in character when he dyed her hair blonde to match the popular Good Witch of Oz. "Even though I was wearing wigs, I needed to be blonde, too," she said.