Did this whole Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson thing totally catch you off guard, too? I feel like I just found out they were a thing and now they’re (allegedly) engaged? Dang. But while they may seem to be moving fast, there are actually some pretty compelling signs Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson were meant to be from the start.
Just in case you haven’t had a chance to catch up on this couple (and no shade if you haven’t, it happened fast), here’s some quick (pun intended) background on the two. It’s believed that the couple first met when Grande hosted Saturday Night Live, where Davidson's a cast member, in March 2016. At the time, both Davidson and Grande were in relationships. On May 10, 2018, Grande announced a split from her boyfriend, rapper Mac Miller. The following week, Davidson confirmed that he too had split from his girlfriend, Cazzie David.
Here’s where things start to get a little juicy, because rumors of the couple actually began a few days earlier, on May 12, when the two were spotted together at an SNL after party, both holding cloud-shaped iPhone cases. I know what you're thinking: What do the cloud cases have to do with anything? It turns out that the cloud emoji may actually have been the couple's secret code, as Grande uses them in her Insta captions about their relationship and they reportedly got matching cloud tattoos on their fingers.
The couple made it Instagram official on May 30, and sources confirmed to People that they are, indeed, together. These same sources also told People that the relationship is “very casual.” Smash cut to June 11 when multiple outlets reported that this “very casual” relationship was actually now an engagement, and Grande was spotted sporting a very impressive engagement ring.
So yeah, it was definitely very quick, but when you stop and look at what these two actually have in common, well, it makes a lot more sense. Here are just a few of the signs these kids may have been meant to be together, all along.
When you think of Davison and Grande, adorably “dorky” may not be the first descriptor that comes to mind, but in reality, theirs is a story of dorky love — specifically, Harry Potter dorky love. For one thing, they went public with their relationship on Insta with a picture of them in Harry Potter robes, with the caption “The chamber of secrets has been opened.” But there’s more!
Davidson also sports a Deathly Hallows tattoo, and yet, he may not even be the biggest HP fan between the two of them, if the above video Grande posted of Davidson teasing her for her ridiculous Harry Potter knowledge is to be believed. So, yeah, just your typical nerd-love here.
It turns out these two share a passion for something other than wizards — they're both total hip-hop heads, too. Davidson talked about his love of rap when he performed on the Goddamn Comedy Jam, where comics talked about what music was most influential to them, followed by them performing songs themselves. In Davidson’s case, he talked about the influence of rap on his life and how it inspired him to get out of Staten Island — he even had a rapper name: V.I. Pete. He followed it with a performance of Coolio’s “Gangster's Paradise.”
Like Davidson, Grande has some skills when it comes to rap flow, and she showed off her hip-hop fan status and talents with an impromptu cover of Big Sean’s “Guap” in a radio interview in 2013.
Both Davidson and Grande have serious comedic chops, and coincidentally, they both got a really early start in comedy. When Davidson was cast on SNL at 20-years-old, he was the youngest cast member in the history of the show. Think that’s young? Well, Grande’s first comedic role was at 16, when she was on Nickelodeon's Sam & Cat.
So, it’s not surprising that insiders cite the couple's shared sense of humor as one of the things that brought the two of them together. The source told E! "she loves that Pete makes her laugh and they share a common sense of humor." Well, that’s adorable.
However, there is one sign that stands out from the rest that shows this couple is meant to be, and it’s that they have both experienced real, life-changing tragedies. For Davidson, it was the loss of his father, a firefighter who was killed in the 9/11 attacks, and for Grande it was a terrorist bombing at a performance in England, in which 22 of her fans died and more than 500 people were injured. Surely, these shared experiences likely led the two to connect on a deeper level. As a source explained to People, “They’ve both been through hardships so that’s something they definitely have in common,” adding, “They’ve both dealt with some dark stuff at a young age.”
One of the best things about being in love is that it has the power to help heal, so hopefully, both Davidson and Grande can use their bond to grow closer. Tragedy can make you realize how short life can be, so that may also explain why they aren’t exactly taking their time. So, sure, they seem to be moving really fast, but when you take into account everything they have in common and what they have been through, well, they just kind of make sense.
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