LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Rising pop star Ariana Grande revealed in a recent interview that her parents raised her to be catholic, but she turned to Kabbalah when the church rejected her brother Frankie for being homosexual.
"When my brother was told that God didn't love him I was like, 'OK, that's not cool,'" Grande told British newspaper The Independent. "They were building a Kabbalah centre in Florida so we both checked it out and really had a connection with it."
Years later, the former Nickelodeon star credits her faith with giving her the "tools" that have led to her life unfolding "in a really beautiful way."
"You have to watch your intentions, make sure you're not giving in to your ego. You have to numb your reactive state. You have the power to change your reality," she said of "the tools" she now has.
"You have to take a second and breathe and reassess how you want to approach or react to a situation or approach an obstacle, or deal with a negative person in your space. That takes a lot of self-control and practice and, I guess, willpower," she concluded.
Speaking of negative thoughts, Grande also touched on rumors that she's "a diva" during the interview, and told the publication she's "cool" because "a lot of people don't know what the word diva means."
"If you want to call me a diva I'll say, "Um, well, cool." Barbra Streisand is a diva; that's amazing. Celine Dion is a diva; thank you. But if you want to call me a bitch, that's not accurate. Because it's just not in my nature."