Ariana Grande and Charli XCX’s ‘Sympathy Is a Knife’ Remix Is a Response to Public Scrutiny

Brat is the gift that keeps on giving. Tonight, Charli xcx dropped a new version of the album with remixes of its original tracks, featuring a variety of artists ranging from Julian Casablancas to Tinashe. One of the biggest surprises in the lineup is Ariana Grande, who appears on “Sympathy is a knife.”

In the original song, Charli expresses her complex feelings of being in the public eye, her insecurities, and inner comparisons between herself and other women and artists. “I don’t wanna share the space / I don’t wanna force a smile / This one girl taps my insecurities / Don’t know if it’s real or if I’m spiraling,” she sings in the beginning of the first verse. It’s thematically not too different from “Girl, so confusing.”

“That song is about me and my feelings and my anxiety and the way my brain creates narratives and stories in my head when I feel insecure and how I don’t want to be in those situations physically when I feel self-doubt,” the British artist told New York Magazine. She also denied that it was about Taylor Swift, despite many listeners’ suspicions.

The new version of the song with Grande, however, addresses a different part of being in the spotlight: immense public scrutiny. Grande made headlines when she divorced her ex-husband, Dalton Gomez, and began dating her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater last year. It didn’t take long for her personal life to get picked apart everywhere from tabloids to social media. It’s easy to see where she’s coming from when she sings lyrics like these on the Charli collab: “It’s a knife when they dissect your body on the front page / It’s a knife when they won’t believe you / Why should you explain?”

These themes resonated with Charli as well. Her new chorus includes the lines, “It’s a knife when you’re finally on top / ’Cause logically the next step is they wanna see you fall.” Speaking to Zane Lowe for his namesake show on Apple Music 1, she spoke about how different her life is now than when she first released Brat. “So my perspective has changed a lot,” she said.

She explained, “But for me personally, from where I was to now, I’m definitely finding more than ever that my words are being picked apart, taken out of context. I offend a lot more people by doing exactly the same things. Sort of nothing like groundbreaking here, but I suppose because no one really cared too much before what I was doing on a personal day-to-day level, I was a bit shocked. And it gave me so much empathy for bigger artists who go through that on a daily basis and have been for years. It’s hard. It’s hard to be constantly scrutinized for things that you have said. It’s hard for your words to be taken out of context and then really feel that you just can’t defend yourself because that would open a whole other can of worms.

“And so ‘Sympathy is a knife,’ the remix version, it was kind of about me recognizing that and me understanding that you are only really knowledgeable about your own position. And once mine had changed, and I had felt that I’d gone through a few interviews throughout this campaign where I’d felt perhaps that I was being a little bit manipulated or there were other agendas at play, and I’d never felt that before. I had heard that Ari wanted to do something and I was like, ‘This is somebody who definitely knows this feeling more so than me.’ And so when she wanted to take this phrase like, ‘It’s a knife,’ obviously, we’re so lucky and blessed to be in the situation that we’re in. All artists who are able to make music at the level that they’re making it financially support themselves from creating art. It’s like we are lucky because not all artists get that.”

Grande hasn’t fully addressed the comments about her in the past year, though she did hint on Instagram that she felt “deeply misunderstood” at the end of 2023. But this summer, she explained why she keeps most of her responses to herself.

“I always come back around to protecting and not taking that bait because I think what I have discovered is like protecting my peace and my privacy and the actual details of—you know, sometimes when it would be addressing something, it would actually be exposing more of your actual real life,” she said on Evan Ross Katz’s podcast, Shut Up Evan.

“Protecting that peace and privacy is actually far more important than the understanding and approval of letting people in in that way [that] is destructive. And maybe letting people in through art is cathartic and necessary to live,” she added.

While this might be Charli’s first collaboration with Grande, she’s had respect for the fellow singer for years. A few of Charli’s old tweets praising Grande surfaced in the past week, to which Grande responded, “i you @charli_xcx.”

Read the full lyrics to “Sympathy is a knife” below, courtesy of Genius.

[Verse 1: Charli xcx]
I-i-i-i-it’s a knife when you know they’re waitin’ for you to choke
It’s a knife when a journalist does a misquote
It’s a knife when a friend is suddenly steppin’ on your throat
It’s a kn— when they say that you’ve been doing things you don’t-don’t
It’s a knife when your old friends hate your new friends
When somebody says, “Charli, I think you’ve totally changed”
It’s a knife when somebody says they like the old me and not the new me
And I’m like, “Who the fuck is she?”

[Pre-Chorus: Charli xcx]
‘Cause it’s a knife whеn you’re finally on top
‘Cause logically the nеxt step is they wanna see you fall to the bottom
It’s a knife when you’re finally on top (On top)
‘Cause logically the next step is they wanna see you fall-fall-fall

[Chorus: Charli xcx]
I-i-i-i-it’s a knife when
It’s a knife when, it’s a knife when (When, when)
All this sympathy is just a knife when (When)
It’s a knife when, it’s a knife when (When, when)
All this sympathy is just a–

[Verse 2: Ariana Grande]
It’s a knife when you know they’re counting on your mistakes
It’s a knife when you’re so pretty, they think you must be fake (Mm)
It’s a knife when they dissect your body on the front page (Mm, ooh)
It’s a knife when they won’t believe you, why should you explain? (Yeah)
It’s a knife when the mean fans hate the nice fans
When somebody says, “Ari, I think you’ve totally changed” (No shit)
(It’s a knife) When somebody says they like the old me and not the new me
And I’m like, “Who the fuck is she?”

[Pre-Chorus: Charli xcx & Ariana Grande, Ariana Grande]
‘Cause it’s a knife when you’re finally on top (On top)
‘Cause logically the next step is they wanna see you fall to the bottom
It’s a knife when you’re finally on top (On top, ooh)
‘Cause logically the next step is they wanna see you fall-fall-fall

[Chorus: Charli xcx & Ariana Grande]
I-i-i-i-it’s a knife when (It’s a knife when)
It’s a knife when (It’s a knife when)
It’s a knife when (When, when)
All this sympathy is just a knife when (It’s a knife when)
It’s a knife when (It’s a knife when)
It’s a knife when (Ah)
All this sympathy is just a kn—

[Outro: Charli xcx & Ariana Grande]
(All this sympathy is just a knife)
All this expectation is a knife
(All this sympathy is just a knife)
All the things I’ve said are just a knife
(All this sympathy is just a knife)
All this expectation is a knife (Mm)
(All this sympathy is just a knife)
Yeah (Mm)
(All this sympathy is just a knife)
All this expectation is a knife (Mm, yeah, mm)
(All this sympathy is just a knife)
All the things I’ve said are just a knife (Mm, yeah, mm)
(All this sympathy is just a knife)
All this expectation is a knife-knife-knife-knife-knife (Mm, yeah, mm)

Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There is a 75 percent chance she’s listening to Lorde right now.