How Ariana Grande Brought Brandy and Monica Closer After Rumored Feud

Grande dropped a remix of her Eternal Sunshine track “The Boy Is Mine” with the pair on Friday, with Monica revealing to Entertainment Tonight the collaboration brought the duo back together in more ways than one.

“The process of the new collaboration did a lot of closing the gaps,” Monica told the publication.

“When you properly communicate something, you can find not only the resolutions and solutions to problems, but sometimes you find that there weren’t ever problems, just consistent miscommunications,” she continued. “It made it a lot easier just to talk.”

After the R&B icons’ original “The Boy Is Mine” came out in the 90s, the pair’s on-camera rivalry over a man led itself to rumors the two were feuding in real life. While they seemingly patched things up when they did a Verzuz together in 2020, they still didn’t become as close as they are now.

“We recognized that the key was to keep other people out of our relationship, both business and personal, and let it be between she and I, and that has changed everything. It’s changed the trajectory of it in its totality,” the Grammy-winning artist continued to ET.

“My son was in the hospital the other day and she was who I was speaking to while he was there, so I think that is what Ariana has done that she may not even realize,” added Monica, who said they’ve spoken more recently than they have in 20 years.

The dynamic duo teamed up for the original “The Boy Is Mine” back in 1998, which Grande said in an interview with Zane Lowe inspired her single.

“I love that song,” Grande told Lowe in an Apple Music interview earlier this year, “I’ve always wanted to reimagine that in some kind of way.”

The “So Gone” singer initially thought their original “should not be touched”.

“And I said that because I felt that it did not need to be redone in the idea of, let’s say, actually doing it the exact way that it was,” Monica explained to ET. “But Ariana and [producer] Max Martin — as soon as I heard this version, I fell in love with it.”

While the pair are not on Grande’s original track, they are featured in the music video. The Christian Breslauer-directed video beings with Grande preparing a love potion in her home, as the television in the background cuts to news anchors played by Brandy and Monica announcing a press conference.