Ariana Grande said she was once known as an ‘evil diva’, but then everything changed.

The transition from likeable underdog to 'hated' diva is a transition many female celebrities experience… and for Ariana Grande, she can recall the exact point in time where public opinion about her image shifted. 

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Grande opened up about the moment everything changed for her in the public eye.

"The back-and-forth throughout the course of my career has been really hard to navigate mentally," she said to Vanity Fair, "I was this approachable, funny redhead on Nickelodeon and everyone liked me. And then I had one too many hit records, and everyone decided that I was an evil diva. And then other terrible things happened, and all of a sudden I was this hero and this victim."

Starting off as a young girl on Nickelodeon, it was easy to love her. Playing a character as endearing and wholesome as Cat in popular sitcoms Victorious and Sam & Cat, Grande quickly became associated with being innocent and adorable.

Watch the BTS footage from Ariana Grande's Vanity Fair cover shoot. Article continues after video. 

Even when her first few hits came out, including 'Break Free' and 'Problem', the world was in love with this young and new female artist. The focus was on her incredible voice, her charismatic demeanour, and of course, her iconic high ponytail. 

"It was like everyone was rooting for me," she said to Vanity Fair. 

Things quickly disintegrated into chaos for Grande when countless stories came out about Grande's alleged unprofessional behaviour. In 2014, a viral blog post was posted by a father who had taken his two daughters to meet Grande after the girls had won a drawing competition. 

 Ariana Grande performs onstage at the Citadel Outlets 11th Annual Tree Lighting Event. Image: Getty

The father, Dan O'Connor, spoke to the disorganisation of the event (organised by MTV, VH1, and Pepsi, not Grande) with no food for the girls throughout the day.

He also alleged that Grande did not spend much time with the girls and that they were asked to delete the photos they had taken with her. 

And the bad press certainly did not stop there. 

In September that same year, an Australian photographer called Chris Pavlich claimed that Grande had a long list of demands when it came to being photographed. He alleged that she refused to be photographed from her right side or with natural light, and eventually left the photoshoot midway through.

In 2015, and perhaps the most infamous of them all, was a surveillance video of Grande licking a doughnut and stating that she hated America.

And that, in a nutshell, is how one goes from America's sweetheart to a pretentious ice princess. Grande, particularly as it pertains to her love life. When it comes to the naysayers, Grande maintains that nobody knows the real story. 

Listen to The Spill for the Ariana Grande story you were never supposed to hear.

When it comes to the story about her behaviour with the photographer in Australia, many people would have read the allegations, but not everybody would have seen Grande's response where she said the story was completely untrue.

"It was just a photographer who got mad at me because I left to change my outfit mid-photo shoot because I didn't like my top," she said, as reported by E! Online. "I was like, 'Oh, I'll be right back!' and then I came back and he had left.""And then he came out and said all these ridiculous untrue things about me," she continued. "I was like, 'That's not real. That's nonsense!'"

"My fans know who I am, my family knows who I am, my friends know who I am, and that's all that matters."

"It definitely doesn't get any easier, seeing some of the negativity that was birthed by disreputable tabloids," she told Vanity Fair about press surrounding her new relationship with Wicked co-star Ethan Slater. "Of course, I went through a lot of life changes during the filming of this movie. A lot of people that were working on it did. We were away for two years. So, of course, I understand why it was a field day for the tabloids to sort of create something that paid their bills."

She continued, "The most disappointing part was to see so many people believe the worst version of it. That was definitely a tough ride."

Feature image: Getty / Instagram.