Ariana Grande has a new manager in Brandon Creed. The superstar has signed with his newly-launched Good World Management firm, sources tell Billboard.

Grande made major headlines in August when she split with longtime manager Scooter Braun’s SB Projects. Grande had been with the company since 2013, the year she released her breakthrough debut album, Yours Truly.

“[Ariana] likes that [Brandon] understands her on a different level and between acting and music, she has a lot coming up and is excited to have found a new support system to help her execute her plans,” says a source close to the situation.

“She wants the focus to be her art and he puts her artistry and vision before anything else,” adds another source. “He is the perfect person to help her execute her visions for this next chapter of her life and career.”

Creed — a longtime manager whose previous clients have included Bruno Mars and Lizzo — announced the launch of Good World Management in July, bringing his clients Mark Ronson, Troye Sivan and Charli XCX along with him. Grande marks his third major signing since then. (Previously, in 2017, Creed merged his own The Creed Company with Irving and Jeffrey Azoff‘s firm to form Full Stop Management.)

In early August, Creed and Lydia Asrat announced they had signed Normani to a co-management deal through Good World and Asrat’s Q10. Then, in September, he signed Demi Lovato — another former Braun client.

Grande has had eight charting albums on the Billboard 200, six of them hit the top 10, with five topping the list. Her last release, Positions, debuted atop the chart in 2020 and spent two weeks at No. 1.
On the Hot 100, she’s logged 73 entries — including 20 top 10s, seven of which hit No. 1. She most recently led the tally with her remix collab on “Die for You” with The Weeknd in March 2023.

Across her catalog of songs, she’s generated 23.5 billion on-demand official streams in the U.S., according to Luminate. Her albums have earned 22.4 million equivalent album units in the U.S, of which traditional album sales equal 3.3 million.

Grande recently teased her forthcoming seventh studio album with a series of photos posted to Instagram back in the studio. Artists including Selena Gomez, Billie Eilish and SZA expressed excitement in the comments for the pop star’s anticipated return.

On Saturday (Dec. 9), Grande performed “Oh Santa!” alongside Mariah Carey in New York. Next year, she will star as Glinda alongside Cynthia Erivo in the long-awaited Wicked film.

A surprise “Oh Santa!” reunion happened in New York City Saturday night (Dec. 9).

Mariah Carey, bringing her Merry Christmas One & All! Tour to town, was joined by Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson at Madison Square Garden, where the pop trio debuted a festive live collab of “Oh Santa!” on the stage.

Carey’s version of “Oh Santa!” featuring Grande and Hudson was released during the holiday season in 2020, and was included on her Magical Christmas Special that year. The three stars trade verses and harmonies on Carey’s Christmas tune.

“I wrote ‘Oh Santa!’ for my album Merry Christmas II You, which was sort of the follow-up to my first Christmas album — we have several [laughs] — and so I think it was all about the actual event, of course, of doing ‘Oh Santa!’ with Jennifer and Ari, but it was also like, how do I see this as a producer?” Carey told Billboard in December 2020. “How do I see these vocals having different textures, what are they? Because originally, I was blending with myself, which that’s kind of one of my favorite things, but it was cool to be able to work with the different vocal textures and play around with it and reimagine it. So that’s what happened. And visually, in the special, it really does feel like a girl group moment. I think we all had a good time with it. That was the fun part about it.”

Watch a fan-captured clip of Carey, Grande and Hudson’s surprise “Oh Santa!” performance at Madison Square Garden below.

Derek Hough is giving an update on his wife’s health condition.

The Dancing With the Stars judge took to social media on Friday (Dec. 8) to share that his spouse, Hayley Erbert, 28, is “on the long road of recovery” following an emergency brain surgery.

“Hayley has always inspired me with her will, her strength, and her resilience and no more so than in the last 48 hrs,” Hough, 38, wrote on Instagram. “She is now on the long road of recovery.”

He continued, “Words cannot express how grateful and thankful we are for the support and love that you have given us. The kindness that we’ve been shown in this incredibly unfathomable and life-changing time is immeasurable. The offers of assistance that have poured in have been so humbling and appreciated.”

The professional dancer concluded his message, writing, “Our hope is that as a family, we can somehow and some way pay it forward.”

Hough revealed earlier in the week that Erbert, who is also a professional dancer, was hospitalized after becoming “disoriented” following A Symphony of Dance performance in Washington, D.C. She was later diagnosed with a “cranial hematoma from a burst blood vessel and required an emergency craniotomy.”

The Mayo Clinic defines an intracranial hematoma as a “collection of blood within the skull. It’s usually caused by a blood vessel that bursts in the brain.” The condition may be caused by “trauma such as a car accident or fall,” the Mayo Clinic states. “The blood may collect in the brain tissue or underneath the skull, pressing on the brain.”

Hough and Erbert began dating in 2015 while appearing on DWTS and married in August 2023.

Read Hough’s update below on Instagram.