Ariana Drops New Video: Watch Here

Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” came out Friday. In it, she pays tribute to some of her favorite movies – Mean Girls, 13 Going on 30, Legally Blonde, and Bring It On.

The video stars Mean Girls’ own Jonathan Bennett as Aaron Samuels, Elizabeth Gillies as Cady Heron, Alexa Luria as Karen Smith, Courtney Chipolone as Gretchen Wieners, Troye Sivan, Colleen Ballinger, Gabi DeMartino, Kris Jenner, Legally Blonde’s Jennifer Coolidge, and more.

VEVO announced that the video broke the platform’s 24-hour view count record, with over 50 million views.

In a statement, a VEVO exec said, “This video continues a string of immensely creative visual work that Ariana has released on our platform this year. Each video has been meticulously crafted and has had a brilliant lead up campaign. Ariana and [director] Hannah Lux Davis’ entertaining work now joins the ranks of some of our most successful videos of all time.”

Meanwhile, according to Billboard, “thank u, next” is also the most popular video ever to be part of YouTube’s Premiere feature, which allows viewers to watch a new clip simultaneously with a group chat and a countdown clock. At its peak, more than 829,000 viewers were watching Ariana and her pals cavort their way through famous scenes.

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Ariana’s “thank u, next,” an ode to her ex-boyfriends, is her first solo No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been No. 1 for three weeks.

Meanwhile, Ariana has clarified why “7 Rings” appears on the license plate of her black Porsche in the video’s scene that pays tribute to the 2001 romantic comedy Legally Blonde.

Prior to the video’s release on Friday, rumors had been swirling online that “7 Rings” could be a song on Grande’s upcoming album. She confirmed it is the title of a new song. “Was the instrumental in the beginning really 7 rings? Cause it SLAPS,” a fan tweeted Saturday, to which Grande replied, “Mhmm,” tagging the Twitter handle of producer/songwriter Tommy Brown.

Soon after, Grande noted that she had gifted the rings to herself and her six friends “Vic, Courtney, Alexa, Tayla, Njomza and Kaydence.” She then shared the story behind the as-yet unreleased track.

“Well …………. ’twas a pretty rough day in nyc. my friends took me to tiffany’s. we had too much champagne. i bought us all rings. — it was very insane and funny. & on the way back to the stu njomza was like ‘bitch, this gotta be a song lol’. so we wrote it that afternoon,” Grande tweeted.

And Grande channels her inner Elle Woods for the video’s Legally Blonde-inspired segment, brushing up on her legal knowledge as she reads a book titled Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy.

Grande’s mother Joan confirmed in a tweet that the inclusion of this book was intentional, and meant to be a dig at President Donald Trump’s infamous hostility towards immigrants and refugees.

“‘Like it’s hard?’…(quote from Legally Blonde)…and yes SHE does, & no He doesn’t…know anything!” Joan wrote in reference to one of Reese Witherspoon’slines from the movie. Joan then went on to call her daughter “a most passionate advocate for humanity,” after confirming Grande’s subtle political statement.