Ariana Grande changed the Ricky line in 'thank u, next' at her birthday show while he watched from the pit

Ariana Grande spent her birthday doing the most Ariana Grande thing imaginable: rewriting a breakup song about an ex while that exact ex stood a few feet away.

At her Eternal Sunshine Tour stop in Austin on June 26, her birthday, Grande reached the Ricky verse in "thank u, next" and changed it. The original line is "Wrote some songs about Ricky / now I listen and laugh." On the night she sang "Wrote some songs about Ricky / I know he still got my back," according to E! News.

It was not a one-off slip. At her first Austin show two nights earlier she had already messed with the same line, singing "and they still kinda slap," per Complex. So by the birthday show she was clearly workshopping material.

Here is the detail that makes it: Ricky Alvarez was actually there. People (via AOL) reported he watched from the VIP pit, smiled through the whole thing, and that Grande's dad, Edward Butera, leaned over and shook his hand. A concertgoer caught Alvarez in the crowd laughing about it with a friend.

Who is Ricky again

Alvarez was a backup dancer who dated Grande from 2015 to 2016. TMZ sources say the two are friends now, which checks out, because the day after the show Grande was photographed having a meal with Alvarez and a friend at De Nada Cantina in Austin, per social media photos cited by E!.

If the bit feels familiar, it is because Ricky has always been a good sport about this particular song. When "thank u, next" first dropped in 2018, he posted himself listening to it and wrote "Nothing but gratitude" and "Thank you, next... (Those songs are fire tho... you're welcome)" on his Instagram Stories. Grande reshared it. Seven years later, the gratitude is apparently mutual.

The part where the internet loses it

Predictably, one rewritten lyric plus a taco run sent fans into full reunion-fanfic mode, and outlets like IBTimes UK have already logged the dating chatter. So let me be a buzzkill about the receipts for a second: neither Grande nor Alvarez has said a single romantic word. What actually exists is one updated lyric, one handshake from her dad, and one casual meal with a third friend present. Everything past that is fan-cam interpretation, and the fan cams are running hot.

Which is the whole charm of it. This is a woman so committed to the lore of her own song that she will revise the liner notes live, on her birthday, with the subject standing right there to approve the edit.