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Ariana Grande brings a dignified note even to Twitter spat

Ariana Grande at the Met Gala in New York earlier in May.
Ariana Grande at the Met Gala in New York earlier in May. Photograph: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Ariana Grande commemorated the one-year anniversary of the horrific Manchester Arena attacks with heart, warmth and grace. She offered a message of love to survivors on Twitter; her mother posted a picture of a candlelit vigil held at their family home, with 22 candles, one for each of the fans who died. On Friday, the singer tweeted a picture of a new tattoo, a bee behind her ear, accompanied by the word “forever”. It must be an unimaginably tough time for Grande. She is still only 24 and her dignity continues to astonish.

In the background, Grande has also managed to pull off the rare feat of making social media seem like a mature forum in which decency and empathy can thrive.

Rather than ignoring a Twitter user with a few hundred followers, who posted a comment that went viral suggesting Grande’s breakup with her ex, Mac Miller, was “heartbreaking” because he’d just released a 10-song album about her, she responded with a quietly furious reply: “How absurd that you minimise female self-respect and self-worth by saying someone should stay in a toxic relationship because he wrote an album about them, which by the way isn’t the case,” she began. She went on to state that she wasn’t “a babysitter or a mother… shaming/blaming women for a man’s inability to keep his shit together is a very major problem”.

In a sea of gossipy and inconsequential celebrity noise, it was a punch-the-air moment. It’s not often that famous people who are scrutinised to such a level get to take control of their own stories, but here Grande was, telling her own life as it is, in no uncertain terms.

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the original tweeter, though, who clearly had no idea that his comment would take on the life that it did. He responded with a sincere apology; it seemed as if everyone learned from the discussion and left it in a polite and understanding place. Usually, Twitter furores involve people typing the same angry point at each other in all-caps repeatedly with a cumulative use of frantic swearing until one of them gets tired and gives up, so to see it resolved so harmoniously was a pleasant revelation.

If she’s fixing the internet, then perhaps there’s nothing Ariana Grande can’t do. Marvel doesn’t really need any more superheroes – the very idea of Avengers: Infinity War has overwhelmed me to the point of inertia – but it might be worth putting Grande forward as a potential addition to the roster.

• Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist