Ariana Grande reflects on 'Eternal Sunshine' tour vs past shows

Ariana Grande opened up about her Eternal Sunshine Tour, calling it “such a beautiful corrective experience”.

On August 17, during an interview with Vosk in the City, she spoke about her latest run of shows that has been “such a beautiful corrective experience” for her. She continued, “I think the last tour I wasn’t necessarily in the same place in life, and I wasn’t able to be as present as I am this time,” said Grande, who joked that she “also wasn’t wearing contact lenses”.

She also noted, “So to be able to literally, like, actually see and connect and feel … and to connect with them in this way, just to sing these songs that have been a part of our, like relationship, for 11 years or 10 years or like 13 years now at this point and just see them and know them and see them dressed as like strange niche jokes and stuff … it’s just a very long, long-term relationship”.

Grande also reflected on when she began to feel such a “massive” amount of love from her fans. She also said, “The first time I felt it was when I first started, and I was very young, and I was doing TV and putting covers on YouTube and everything, like, it has felt like the same kind of love since, which has felt very real to me and just very mutual”. Grande continued, “I care about them so much. We have a very personal, actual, like, connection.”

She recently announced that she would take a break from the public eye after her Eternal Sunshine Tour wraps in London on September 1, as scrutiny surrounding her health and body has intensified.

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A rep for Grande told PEOPLE that she “will be taking a step back from visibility after she completes the Eternal Sunshine Tour. She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny,” the rep added.

Grande’s rep called the tour “a beautiful experience” for her. “She loves her fans and has loved every minute of this tour so much,” the rep added.

A source close to Grande told PEOPLE that Grande “performs a very physical show, and there is a lot of athleticism involved. She performs healthily and successfully at a very high level night after night,” the source added. Grande addressed the decision to take a step back from the spotlight with her fans during her show at United Center on August 3.

“The announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing. It is something that I had decided to plan,” she said, adding she had planned it “quietly, a long time ago.”

The “Positions” hitmaker assured fans that it wasn’t the “negativity” that was “ruining things for me.” “No matter what noises exist out there, nothing will be able to distort my reality or be more real to me or not as real to me as this love that we share,” Grande told the audience before calling the Eternal Sunshine Tour “one of the most healing, beautiful, correct and special experiences” of her life.

PEOPLE also confirmed that Grande will no longer appear in the West End revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George with her Wicked costar Jonathan Bailey, which was set to open in London next summer. Grande will wrap her tour with 10 shows at London’s O2 Arena through September 1.