Mac Miller, a well-known rapper, passed away this past Friday from a suspected overdose at the age of 26. He has been open about struggling with addiction for years, and his death, especially at such a young age, is extremely tragic.
However, we need to stop blaming Ariana Grande for his death.
Mac Miller and Ariana Grande dated for around two years and recently broke up this past April. Following Miller's death, people have started taking to social media and blaming Ariana for his death. The overwhelming amount of comments she received resulted in her disabling comments from her account. People are blaming her for moving on too soon after the relationship ended, seeing as she recently got engaged to actor Pete Davidson. There are also some saying that she shouldn't have broken up with Mac because she knew he was struggling and she needed to help him. People are blaming her and their break up for his death and claiming that, if they were to still be together, he would still be alive.
We can't blame Ariana and expect her to have stayed in a relationship that she described as toxic. On Twitter this past May, Ariana responded to a tweet in which someone blamed her for Mac Miller's DUI after their break up. She responded by saying we cannot, "minimize female self-respect and self-worth by saying someone should stay in a toxic relationship." She also continued to say that she cared and tried to support him and his sobriety for years and that she will always care for him.
In a recent podcast, one of Mac Miller's best friends was talking about Mac's death and Ariana, and he said, "she was deeply helpful in keeping Mac sober and helping him get sober, and she was all about him being healthy." This shows how much she did try to help him, but, at the end of the day, she couldn't, and it's unrealistic and unfair for her to be expected to stay in a relationship that was toxic to her. This diminishes her worth, which is not an ideal we want to promote in our society.
Imagine having to deal with the death of someone in your life you loved, and then having to deal with thousands of people on the internet, who don't know you or the situation personally, blaming you for being responsible for the death. Instead of blaming anyone for Miller's tragic death, we should start to acknowledge that addiction isn't a choice but rather a disease that affects many.
