It's understandable that Grande and Pete's breakup would affect the lyrics of "Thank U, Next" even minimally; she references their broken engagement.

In the first verse, Grande sings, "Thought I'd end up with Sean / But he wasn't a match / Wrote some songs about Ricky / Now I listen and laugh / Even almost got married / And for Pete, I'm so thankful / Wish I could say 'thank you' to Malcolm / 'Cause he was an angel."

Grande said in the interview that she had recorded two alternate versions of "Thank U, Next," including one without the names, before deciding to release the single that was dropped.

"I was also trying to be protective," she said. "In my relationship [with Pete] at the time, things were like up and down and on and off, and so I didn't know what was going to happen and then we got back together, so I had to make a different version of it, and then we broke up again, so we ended up going with that verse."

"There's a version where I was getting married, there's a version where I'm not getting married, there's a version with nothing—we're not talking about anything," she continued. "But we all knew that the first version was gonna be the version we ultimately went with."