Jarring Photos Of Ariana Grande That Make Us Miss Her Old Face

It's a strangely disquieting feeling growing up with celebrities while watching Father Time and his associate, Dr. Beverly Hills, do a number on them. Perhaps their desperate fight against time reminds us that we're losing ours, too, or maybe it's just the idea of lost innocence that we're really mourning here. Few celebrities have hammered this home quite like Ariana Grande, who has undergone several dramatic transformations over the years.

Scroll through internet photos from years long gone, and you come across a version of the singer that looks like she could just barely pass herself off as Ariana's younger cousin, if you squint hard enough. Somewhere between Broadway's "13" and 2025, the famous pop star seemingly swapped out her face, and the photographic evidence that has accumulated might give you whiplash.

Even when you see what Ariana Grande looks like going makeup-free today, there's still a fundamental shift in her bone structure that can't be explained by contouring alone. The before and after photos are jarring enough when you know what you're looking at, but digging through the archives reveals a younger Ariana who seems almost unrecognizable. With rounder cheeks, a fuller face, and genuinely curly hair that hadn't yet been chemically straightened into submission, these photos illustrate a Nickelodeon kid who still looked like she belonged in a high school yearbook. So, in case you're also feeling wistful about the face that was, here are photos that remind us what Ariana used to look like before she transformed into the sleek pop goddess we know today.

Let's rewind all the way to October 2008, when a 15-year-old Ariana Grande stood at Planet Hollywood Times Square with her castmates from "13," the Jason Robert Brown musical that made history as the first Broadway production with an entirely teenage cast. The photos from this era are impossible to reconcile with the singer we know today. There's no signature ponytail, no cat-eye makeup extending past her temple, and certainly no calculated angles for the benefit of cameras. Grande was just a theater kid, fresh-faced with curly brown hair, sporting a smile that's both authentic and awkward. Plus, let's not forget the full, rosy cheeks that haven't encountered any cosmetic intervention. Oh, to be so young.

At the tail end of her Broadway moment and before Nickelodeon came calling, Ariana Grande attended the premiere of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" on October 30, 2009, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. While images from that night show Grande beginning to abandon her usually curly hair, she was still a far cry from the singer who now attends film premieres in Paris wearing custom Givenchy. Her dark green dress was age-appropriate and simple, and she had the unworried face of a 16-year-old. Compared to today's Ariana, her jawline was softer, and her face had a roundness that has completely vanished. You can chalk some of it up to growing out of her teenage years, but as powerful as puberty is, it's not a magician.

Ariana Grande pulled up to the December 7 premiere of "The Lovely Bones" looking like the quintessential 2009 teen. Photos from the event are particularly striking because of the venue's unforgiving lighting, which highlighted Grande's original features in the best possible way for our purposes. This was pre-fame Grande, before she developed the ultra-petite, angular silhouette she's known for today. Her face was rounder, her features softer, and she carried herself like a regular teenager trying to figure out how these snappy photo ops on red carpets work. There's something almost heartbreaking about it — as if this is a visual window to a version of Grande who is never coming back.

Ariana Grande's appearance at the Kids' Choice Awards in March 2010 was a momentous occasion. The TV show "Victorious" was about to premiere, heralding the beginning of her Nickelodeon era, and photos from the event show the actor in transition. Granted, she continued to project the image of the young, talented, and innocent theater kid, but with the beginnings of face-sculpting makeup. There's something about Grande's expression in these photos that suggests she's becoming more aware of the cameras, too. Even her eyes seem to have changed shape, though, as unfiltered photos of her makeup reveal, the jury's still out on whether that's an upgrade.

Ariana Grande began experimenting with her signature ponytail hair transformation back in 2010, and one of the earliest sightings was at the "Shrek Forever After" premiere in April at the Tribeca Film Festival. The high ponytail isn't quite there yet — more of a half-up situation than the gravity-defying extensions she's now known for — but you can see the seeds being planted. Meanwhile, her face was unmistakably pre-renovation. Images from the event present her with a softer jaw, rounder cheeks, and a nose with a noticeably wider bridge and rounder tip. Grande's nose is now visibly sharper and narrower, despite the singer insisting she's never had work done on it.

Photographs from the July 11, 2011, premiere of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" might just be the most telling of all. At 18, Ariana Grande's features should have finished making major natural changes, but the face in these photos looks nothing like the one she has today. Her nose was different and her jawline less angular, as already outlined above. Some might attribute this to losing baby fat, but bones weren't made of baby fat last time we checked. Whether you credit makeup, time doing its thing, or more clinical interventions, there's no denying that something fundamental shifted between 2011 and now.

December 1, 2011, brought the Los Angeles opening night of "Wicked," and there's something almost too perfect about finding the 18-year-old Ariana Grande at this particular premiere event. Photos from the night show Grande 13 years before she'd star in the film adaptation as Glinda, so if you were looking for a before and after that writes itself, this is as meta as it gets.

Images from December 1 highlight Grande at a fascinating point. She's still got the red "Victorious" hair, but it's much darker, and you can see her starting to develop the aesthetic, expression, and disposition that would define her shift into a pop career. Maybe that's what makes these photos so compelling, serving as a reminder that — so far as looks are concerned — everyone, even Ariana Grande, used to just be a kid figuring it out as they went along.