Mac Miller's friend says Ariana Grande was 'unbelievably involved and helpful' in late rapper's sobriety
Mac Miller‘s close friend Shane Powers is speaking out in support of Ariana Grande. The late rapper’s ex-girlfriend has been the target of unwarranted hate and blame after Miller was found dead in his home Friday from a suspected overdose. Miller, who was open about his sobriety struggles, and Grande split in May after nearly two years of dating.
On his podcast “The Shane Show,” Powers called Grande “an unbelievably stabilizing force in [Mac’s] life,” praising her for helping the rapper get sober.
“I had sort of without realizing [it] prepared myself for Mac to be gone. I wasn’t surprised. Does that make sense?” he told listeners on Monday’s episode. “This was something that was always a possibility because of the way Mac lived his life.”
Powers also said, “It doesn’t mean that Mac was out of his mind, it doesn’t mean that Mac is an addict, it doesn’t mean that Mac is an alcoholic, it doesn’t mean that Mac was suicidal. He definitely was not suicidal, that I know. Did he have a strange relationship with chemicals? Yes … There’s a ton of people that were always involved in trying to help Mac get better. A ton.”
One of the most influential people was his former girlfriend, Powers said.
“He had a lot of good stuff going on. Ariana and him were together, and they were very much in love and I have to say — she was incredible when he was first sobering up. She was a f***ing ‘G’ to him,” noted Powers. “There could not have been anybody more supportive of him being sober than Ariana. I saw that, I was around it, I took phone calls from her, ‘How do I help? What do I do?’ This little girl was unbelievably involved and helpful to him being healthy.”
And the praise is coming from someone who admittedly doesn’t like Grande “very much.” Powers said, “I think she acted like an idiot with the breakup … and the marrying some dude in a week. I mean that’s just ridiculous. She’s got her own f***ing batch of issues,” he said. (Grande and Pete Davidson got engaged weeks after she and Miller announced their split.)
“[Ariana’s] got her own s***, there’s no doubt about it. But I gotta tell you man, there was no one in [Mac’s] life more ready to go to the wall for him when it came to him being sober,” Powers said. “She was an unbelievably stabilizing force in his life and she was deeply helpful and effective in keeping Mac sober and helping him get sober. She was all about him being healthy. Period. In this area of his life.”
Powers said that he wanted to make the Grande point clear when talking about his friend’s death and that “Mac did not die because he was suicidal or he was bummed out.”
Days after Grande and Miller’s split was made public, the “Self Care” rapper was arrested on DUI and hit-and-run charges. Someone on Twitter blamed the “No More Tears Left to Cry” songstress. Grande responded, calling it “absurd” that the person would “minimize female self-respect and self-worth by saying someone should stay in a toxic relationship because he wrote an album about them.”
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) May 23, 2018
Although Grande has not publicly spoken about Miller’s passing, she shared a photo of her former love on Instagram with no caption. She has also turned off the comments on her posts. The singer is said to be devastated over his death.
A post shared by Ariana Grande (@arianagrande) on Sep 8, 2018 at 2:28pm PDT
An autopsy on Miller has been completed, but a cause of death is still to be determined, pending toxicology results.
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