weekend announcement

Ariana Grande delivered a four-minute speech to more than 20,000 of her fans in Chicago on Monday night amid reports that she’s stepping away from the public eye due to online scrutiny.

During the first of three sold-out shows at Chicago’s United Center, the “Break Free” singer stopped the concert to address the widespread speculation surrounding her weekend announcement that she’d be stepping away from the public eye when her Eternal Sunshine tour concludes on Sept. 1.

Grande read the prepared statement from her phone, telling the audience that she didn’t want to get nervous and forget.

“Sometimes when a story comes out that’s not directly from me, things can get a little blown out of proportion,” she said. “So I just wanted to speak to my fans directly tonight because I love you so much.

“So basically, the announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing. It is something that I had decided. It’s a plan that I had quietly made a long time ago, and it’s a decision that was made from a thoughtful and empowered place, and I want you to know that many, many things can be true at the same time. I want to share this because I heard that my fans were worried that negativity was ruining things for me, but I just have to say, that could not be more the f— opposite.

“This is not what that is and I just want to make that very, very clear. Nothing can be ruined. Multiple things can be true at the same time. Boundaries can need to be set. Human beings can need a break sometimes. And also, this can be and will continue to be the greatest experience of my professional and creative life.

“I have one more thing to say,” she continued. “No matter what noises exist out there, nothing will ever be able to distort my reality or be more real to me, or louder to to me, than this love that we share, or than how it feels to make art with the people that I love and respect. Absolutely nothing will change that or distort that for me. And I want you to know that. I love you, and this is what I will always take with me and carry with me because the rest of that s— is not mine to carry, so I don’t carry it. I needed to get up here and differentiate that from my truth for you all, because I love you, and this tour has been the most healing, beautiful, corrective, magnificent, special experience and so has putting out [the album] “Petal.” It’s been extraordinary.

“I wish that words were enough to articulate just how much I love you all.”

A representative for Grande on Sunday announced her upcoming hiatus in a statement shared with multiple outlets.

The announcement coincided with news that the Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated star would be dropping out of Stephen Sondheim’s West End revival of “Sunday in the Park With George,” in which she was set to star next summer opposite Jonathan Bailey.

Grande “looks forward to finishing [her current] tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily,” the statement said.

Grande will then take “a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny.”

The announcement followed the Friday release of Grande’s eighth studio album, “Petal,” and the accompanying music video for the title track in which the pop star takes out a panel of her critics with a chainsaw. In response to the video, fans and foes alike flooded the comments section with remarks about Grande’s appearance and apparent weight loss.

The Times’ pop music critic Mikael Wood wrote of the album, “[T]he pop superstar opens the spigot on what she’s described as an ‘unfiltered rage’ to blast any number of feckless exes, a prying public obsessed with her body and her personal life — and not least herself for allowing anyone the power to hurt her in the first place.”