The journey towards stardom and fame is different for everyone. Some people luck into it, others do stupid stuff on YouTube and somehow get popular, and some work incredibly hard over a long period of time and fame (and a Madame Tussauds wax figure) is the byproduct of all their efforts.
For Ariana Grande, her journey to where she is now is quite the odd one that involves luck, YouTube, and ice hockey.
You see, we all thought she got famous through her music. As it turns out, she initially got famous at the tender age of five after getting hit by a hockey puck. Twice.
Back in 1998 and before any thoughts of stardom came to mind, Ariana was just a five-year-old girl enjoying a game of ice hockey with her mum at the Florida Panthers’ squeaky new stadium.
But it turned out that Ariana had some kind of unexplained magnetism to hockey pucks because she somehow managed to get smacked by a puck on the right wrist. Just to make sure that wasn’t a fluke, she later got hit again except it was on the left wrist the second time.
It was such a bizarre history-making incident – she was the first person to get hit by a puck in the new stadium – that the local newspaper ran a story about it and labeled her the “Boca kid“.
The inner skeptic in everyone would probably call this story bogus but Ariana confirmed that the whole thing is true on Twitter. She may have well and truly outstripped her initial hockey puck fame but it’s good to see her acknowledge the humble (and painful) beginnings of her journey.
If we were to learn a lesson from this Ariana Grande story, it’s that the road to fame can be as simple as getting hit – twice – by stray hockey pucks and making some dubious sports history in the process.
Yeah, nah. Thank u, next.