Ariana Grande

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Grande's early musical identity was shaped by her dissatisfaction with her first promotional single, "Put Your Hearts Up," a bubblegum pop song released on December 12, 2011. During a radio interview on KIIS-FM on March 25, 2013, Grande confessed that she had "hated" both the music video for and the song itself, considering it "a terrible first impression." She added that she wanted to "pretend it never happened before it already happened" and felt no enthusiasm to promote it. In a 2013 interview with Billboard, Grande implied that her music needed to relate to her maturing personality, wanting to perform music as a result of "growing up" while still being "there for [her] younger fans" on Sam & Cat. In January 2013, she met with producer Harmony Samuels, who presented her with a demo of "The Way" that featured vocals of co-writer Jordin Sparks, for whom the song was originally intended. Grande immediately connected with the sound and asked Mac Miller to feature, to which he responded, "Sounds like a hit to me." The song was recorded that same month and caught the attention of Republic Records VP Charlie Walk when he heard it playing from co-founder Monte Lipman's office. Walk recalled, "It was 8:00 one night, and I heard a song coming from Monte's office through my wall. He called me down and I played a video, a DIY of Ariana Grande. We heard the song and I immediately made the decision to set it up [and] put the song out."

In Their Own Story

The music video for "The Way" was filmed on February 10 and 11, 2013, and released on March 28, 2013, directed by Jones Crow. It depicts Grande and Miller dancing inside a room covered in balloons, as Miller takes several photographs of Grande. At the end of the video, Miller and Grande kiss, which Grande described as "quite a statement" of growing up. The video was Vevo-certified on October 2, 2013, having reached 100 million views, and as of December 2025 has over 480 million views on YouTube. Grande debuted the live performance of "The Way" with "multi-octave pipes" on the May 29, 2013 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where Miller was invited on stage before he snuggled on Grande and kissed her hand, with Rap-Up staff calling the performance "fun and flirty." Grande and Miller also performed the song together on the June 14, 2013 episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and on the morning show Today in Rockefeller Plaza on September 3, 2013, where Miller name-dropped American rapper Lil B during his opening verse. During the pre-show of the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, Grande performed "The Way" in a medley alongside "Baby I" (2013), wearing a purple silk dress with "prom-style" jewels and high heels, accompanied by two backup dancers sporting black.

Reader's Guide

The narrative of "The Way" begins with Grande's online buzz leading up to its release. She first tweeted about the song on March 5, 2013, stating it would be released later that month, and announced the release date on March 13, 2013. She posted a teaser trailer on her YouTube account on March 16, 2013, then shared a second teaser on March 21, 2013. In the later half of March, Grande went on a radio tour across the United States, visiting Y-100 Miami and 93.3 FM on March 18, 2013, then Elvis Duran and the Morning Show and a release party thrown by Z100 on March 19, 2013. On March 25, 2013, she visited KIIS-FM for an interview with JoJo Wright, and "The Way" debuted on On Air with Ryan Seacrest that same day. She visited 99-7 Now on March 29, 2013. Following its release, the song sold over 120,000 digital downloads within the first 48 hours and 219,000 in its first week. It debuted at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending April 5, 2013, making Grande the first top-ten arrival for a lead female artist making her first Hot 100 appearance since Yael Naim in 2008. The song dropped to number 22 in its second week, then to number 37, but gradually rebounded as radio stations gave it more attention, eventually peaking at number 9 for two weeks. "The Way" spent 26 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. An official R&B remix featuring American rapper Fabolous was released on July 11, 2013, and a Spanglish version featuring Miller and Colombian rapper J Balvin was also released. On December 11, 2013, Minder Music filed a copyright infringement lawsuit claiming the line "What we gotta do right here is go back, back into time" infringed its copyright in the 1972 single "Troglodyte" by The Jimmy Castor Bunch; the case was settled outside of court in 2015.

Did You Know?

• Grande hated her first promotional single 'Put Your Hearts Up' and called it 'a terrible first impression' during a KIIS-FM interview on March 25, 2013.
• 'The Way' was originally intended for Jordin Sparks, whose vocals were on the demo that Grande heard from producer Harmony Samuels in January 2013.
• The song debuted at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, making Grande the first lead female artist to achieve a top-ten arrival on her first Hot 100 appearance since Yael Naim, whose 'New Soul' debuted at number 9 in 200
• A copyright infringement lawsuit was filed on December 11, 2013, claiming the intro line of 'The Way' copied the 1972 single 'Troglodyte' by The Jimmy Castor Bunch; the case was settled out of court in 2015.
• The music video for 'The Way' was Vevo-certified on October 2, 2013, after reaching 100 million views, and has over 480 million views on YouTube as of December 2025.