The millennial vanguard of the entertainment industry isn’t supposed to be like their predecessors. They say they’ve traded heroin chic for body positivity, cultural appropriation for social justice, pitting women against each other for feminism. Then why does the meanest of the mean girls keep topping the charts?

A hairstylist in Beverly Hills once told me that Ariana Grande might be the worst diva to reign terror over Hollywood since Mariah Carey (but the pint-sized pop princess “didn’t earn that right” as Carey did, he reminded me). A photographer in L.A. who shot the singer for a magazine noted that, around the time she was engaged to Mac Miller, Grande asked after the shoot that photos that included her engagement ring should not be published. Grande and Miller split shortly thereafter, and she began dating Pete Davidson the same month.