Ariana Grande’s increasingly frail appearance has reignited a difficult debate over body image, celebrity culture and whether fear of saying the wrong thing can sometimes silence genuine concernDana Spector|I was not surprised by Ariana Grande’s latest video, the one in which she looks so painfully thin that watching her left me feeling less like I was seeing a pop star than someone who might simply crumble in front of the camera.I have been watching her with genuine concern for years.GalleryAriana Grande’s shrinking frame is alarming, and pretending otherwise helps no one (Illustration created with AI / Design: Livia Toshinsky)Which is strange, because I am not really a fan. Grande is an extraordinary singer, of course. Her lower register can sound like velvet, while the high notes have the clarity of crystal. But at my age, the only people I truly envy are those who retired early and post stories of themselves drinking cocktails beneath fig trees in Greece.Still, for a long time I have found myself watching Grande’s changing body with growing anxiety, disappearing down internet rabbit holes devoted to “Ariana Grande’s new body,” scrutinizing photographs and wondering how much thinner she can become.And every time I do, I remember a summer day seven years ago.Ran and I were sitting in the obsessively designed living room of an Airbnb in London while our two daughters got ready in front of the mirror for an Ariana Grande concert.A year earlier, Maya had celebrated her bat mitzvah and asked for one gift: a trip to see Ariana perform. Ran’s middle daughter, Noga, had celebrated hers two years before without getting the obligatory trip abroad, so it was decided that she would come too.We bought three tickets to Grande’s Sweetener tour, two for the girls and one for whichever adult accompanied them.Naturally, once the time came, we wanted so badly to win that coveted parental medal of giving our children pure happiness that we bought the most expensive tickets available, a VIP package costing roughly 3,000 shekels each. That was before boutique hotels and shopping at Brandy Melville, the fashion chain teenage girls adore despite selling clothes in doll-sized proportions.But that afternoon, a few hours before the concert, it all felt worth it.Our girls were almost floating with excitement, and I remember thinking: This happiness is worth even the third loan I’ll have to take out when we get home.I loved Ariana in that moment.She seemed like a kind of guardian angel, a fairy with an astonishing voice guiding our daughters through the passage from girlhood to womanhood.Ariana Grande at the American Film Institute Awards, January 2026 (Photo: REUTERS / Mario Anzuoni)Because that is what stars are to children. They are not merely singers or actors they happen to like. They become models. Something about them reshapes the child watching them: how she dresses, what she admires, what kind of woman she imagines becoming.And I was pleased that our girls had chosen Grande.Back then she seemed like a deeply feminine young woman, a girly girl who could wear streetwear one day and Audrey Hepburn-style skirts, pearls and lace the next. I liked the version of femininity she embodied: romantic, soft, comfortable with vulnerability.And here is another confession that will probably make me sound terrible: I also liked that Grande was intensely sexual in her lyrics, her dancing and her microscopic miniskirts.I was never afraid of my daughter admiring a sexy pop star. Why shouldn’t a singer show teenage girls that a woman can be successful, wealthy, brilliant and highly sexual?Grande’s sexuality did not feel miserable or manufactured to me. She did not seem like a passive doll being dressed by executives. She appeared to enjoy the makeup, the dancing, the provocative lyrics. Watching our daughters head to that concert, I remember thinking that of all the pop stars they could have chosen, this seemed like a pretty good one: someone who projected confidence, sexuality and, at least to my eyes, health.That is why looking at Ariana now makes me sad.Actually, sad is not the right word.It makes me furious.Her latest video triggered that reaction all over again. I watched it and saw a woman who, to my eyes, looks frighteningly frail. That is my interpretation, not a diagnosis, and I do not know what is happening medically in her life.But I know what the images remind me of.Over the years, three girls I love have struggled with anorexia. Two spent a year working with an exceptional dietitian who helped them recover. One was eventually hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center.I remember the last conversation I had with her shortly before she was diagnosed.She looked far too thin to me, but I did not dare say anything. That is simply not what we are taught to do anymore. You do not comment directly on a young person’s body.Yet there were so many signs that something was wrong.Ariana Grande in the Petal music video(Photo: Screenshot from YouTube)It was a warm March day, but she sat pressed against a heater, shivering. She spoke obsessively about things she had to accomplish: an English exam, organizing her sister’s birthday. She had always been a perfectionist.Then the illness changed her.The girl who had once cared deeply about pleasing everyone became increasingly consumed by a brutal competition with herself. Her mother would beg her to eat a little bread, while she seemed emotionally unreachable.That, for me, is one of the cruelest things about anorexia. The people around you may tell you that you are disappearing, but the illness can distort the way you interpret their concern.And that is why I do not blame Ariana Grande.I do not know whether she has an eating disorder. I cannot know that from photographs or videos, and neither can anyone else outside her medical circle.What I do know is that seeing her has become deeply upsetting to me because it evokes something I recognize from people I have loved.What angers me is the broader culture around this.For years, people online have expressed concern about Grande’s appearance, and almost immediately the discussion turns into a warning that commenting on another person’s body is unacceptable.There is an important reason for that rule. Women have been judged, humiliated and dissected publicly for their bodies for generations.But I increasingly wonder whether we have taken a necessary correction and turned it into another kind of blindness.At what point does refusing to say anything stop being compassionate?Grande has reportedly indicated that she intends to step back from public life because of relentless scrutiny. That may very well be what she needs, and she has every right to set boundaries around her body and health.But there is also something deeply uncomfortable about the way celebrity culture asks us to accept every visible transformation without question.It reminds me of The Emperor’s New Clothes: everyone seeing something that worries them, while everyone is also afraid to be the person who says it aloud.Fans are one thing. A professional team is another.If someone is under enormous pressure, physically or psychologically, the people around them have a responsibility to protect them rather than simply protect the machinery of the career.Again, I am not claiming to know Grande’s diagnosis or medical condition. I do not.My fear comes from somewhere much more personal.I have watched anorexia enter the lives of girls I love. I have seen what it can do to a family. I have seen parents begging, bargaining and reorganizing their entire lives around keeping a child alive.And I think about the next generation of bat mitzvah girls asking their parents for a trip abroad to see Ariana Grande perform.I want to believe they look at her and hear the voice, admire the talent and see nothing else.But I cannot know that.And that is the part that frightens me most.