bad thing (bunny hop)

Some pop songs announce themselves with a confession. This one arrives with a shrug and a grin. "bad thing (bunny hop)" sits near the end of Ariana Grande's album petal, and it sounds like someone who has already decided to do the questionable thing and is only asking the listener to enjoy the ride. Tempo up, guitars out, conscience on mute.

It is a strange fit on an album that mostly traffics in anger. That contrast is exactly what makes the track worth a closer look.

Where the song lives

petal arrived on July 31, 2026, as Grande's eighth studio album and the follow-up to eternal sunshine.^[6] Grande has said she wrote it from a place of "unfiltered rage," and Variety's review describes a record that is darker, moodier and blunter than its predecessor, with emotions that are volatile rather than heartbroken.^[5]

The same review notes that, with one exception, the album's songs concern either vengeance or sex.^[5] "bad thing (bunny hop)" belongs firmly to the second camp. Songfacts lists it as track 11 of 12, directly before the wistful closer "nowhere, nobody," and records a chart peak of 36.^[1] Capital FM groups it with "freak" as a song about romance and lust rather than revenge.^[2]

That placement matters. After a run of tracks about cutting people out, the album lets one song go the other way, toward someone she wants back in.

Grande has called the album experimental and different, and told Apple Music that it pulls from many different parts of herself. She has also said it grew out of some of the harder moments of the previous year.^[2] Read against that, a song of pure appetite is a deliberate counterweight. The album does not pretend that a person is only one mood.

The same logic shaped eternal sunshine, where she wrote openly about fame and the way strangers feel entitled to her private life. petal keeps that awareness but swaps resignation for provocation. When the whole world already has an opinion about whom you date, the most defiant move may be to enjoy it.

A sound that refuses to apologize

Variety's Jem Aswad describes the track as fast and new wave-esque, with a flash of "Blinding Lights" in its DNA.^[5] Songfacts goes a step further and calls it a guitar-driven mix of new wave and pop-rock, a possible callback to the rock-leaning edge of her Dangerous Woman era.^[1] A student review in New University adds that the beat is playful and catchy, with flirty writing and lovesick vocals, and notes the audible Auto-Tune on her voice.^[4]

Taken together, the descriptions point to a song built on forward motion. The production is not trying to brood. It bounces, which is the first clue about how to read the title.

The album was written and produced by Grande with her longtime collaborators Ilya Salmanzadeh and Max Martin, with Ilya as executive producer.^[5] Martin appears on only three songs, so much of the record leans on Ilya's stranger synth instincts.^[5] Against that backdrop, a bright, guitar-forward new wave number stands out like a window opened in a dark room.

The pleasure of a bad decision

The core idea, as listeners describe it, is simple. A narrator is drawn back toward an old flame while fully aware that this may not be wise. Songfacts frames it as playful and slightly reckless, a person weighing the risk and leaning in anyway.^[1] The New University review reads it as a song about yearning and about recognizing how strong an attraction really is.^[4]

What is interesting is the tone of the self-awareness. Pop has a long tradition of the guilty-pleasure romance, but those songs usually dramatize the guilt. Here the narrator treats the label "bad" almost as a compliment. The title promises a bad thing, and the music answers that it sounds like a great time.

There is also a quiet maturity underneath. Choosing a risky romance with open eyes is different from being swept into one. The narrator is not a victim of desire. She is a participant who has done the math and decided the odds are worth it.

Reading the subtitle

The phrase in parentheses never appears in the song, which is why it has become the subject of so much speculation.^[1] Two readings dominate.

The first treats "bunny hop" as derogatory slang for a woman who jumps from one man to the next. Capital FM links this to a recurring Grande theme, the public's running commentary on her love life, and compares the move to her earlier habit of taking an insult and wearing it as a banner.^[2] On this reading, the song is reclaiming the label before anyone else can use it.

The second reading is visual. Fans connect the phrase to the black bunny ears from the Dangerous Woman cover era, a nod to an earlier chapter of her career that would suit a song with that era's rock-tinged swagger.^[1][2] Neither theory is confirmed. Both are plausible, and they are not mutually exclusive. A title can be a joke about gossip and a wink at an old aesthetic at once.

The Ricky Alvarez question

Almost as soon as the album landed, fans began to ask who the song might be about. The leading theory points to dancer Ricky Alvarez, who dated Grande in 2015 and 2016 and, according to Songfacts, publicly reconnected with her in mid-2026.^[1] Supporters of the theory point to a line about the place where two people fell in love and the idea of doing it a second time, as well as a passage praising a partner who stayed steady through outside noise.^[2][3]

There are reasons for caution. IBTimes states plainly that neither Grande nor Alvarez has confirmed the song is about their history, that the lyrics never name him, and that the idea remains a fan theory.^[3] Songfacts adds a timeline problem: the album would have been largely locked before the reunion became public, so the song may have been written or finalized late in the sessions, or may concern something else entirely.^[1]

It is worth noting how the discussion itself echoes the song's concerns. A track that can be read as a response to public scrutiny of her relationships immediately becomes an object of public scrutiny of her relationships. The speculation is, in a sense, part of the text.

There is a useful way to test these readings: imagine the song stripped of its beat. Slowed down, the same impulse would sound like regret or longing, the stuff of a late-night ballad. The speed is what turns it into a dare. Tempo does the interpretive work that a more earnest lyric would have to do with explanation.

That choice also explains why the song feels more like a wink than a plea. A narrator who begged would be asking permission. A narrator who bounces is announcing that she does not need any.

Why it resonates

Plenty of listeners will not care who the song is about. What lands is the feeling: the giddy, slightly embarrassing moment when you realize you are going to ignore your own good advice. It is a feeling pop music rarely admits to without a layer of apology.

The song also gives petal some breathing room. Reviewers have called the album restrained in places and angular in others, and one student critic judged it not her strongest record but admired its range of themes, while Variety called it her most accomplished.^[4][5] A bright, danceable track about desire offers a different register without abandoning the album's honesty. Even in its lightest moment, the record is telling the truth about wanting what one probably should not have.

It also helps that the song arrives late. By track eleven, a listener has spent most of the album in the company of a narrator who is furious, guarded and unwilling to be handled. Hearing that same narrator suddenly lighten up feels earned rather than random. The softness reads as a reward for surviving everything that came before, which gives the playful surface more weight than it first appears to carry.

Other ways to hear it

A more skeptical listener might hear the song less as a celebration and more as a rationalization. The cheerful surface could be covering for ambivalence, a way of laughing off a decision that still carries risk. Placed right before a quiet, introspective closer, the bounce can sound like the last burst of energy before reflection sets in.^[5]

Another reading folds the song into the album's larger arc. If petal is about separating from harmful attachments, then choosing the right person, even a risky one, could be the flip side of that project. Cutting people off is one form of self-definition. Letting someone back in on your own terms is another.

Conclusion

"bad thing (bunny hop)" is not the heaviest song on petal, and it does not try to be. Its achievement is tonal. In a season defined by rage, it makes room for appetite, and it does so with a wink, a fast beat and an unbothered grin.

Whether it points to a particular person, a former era of her career, or simply a mood, the song captures a recognizable human act: knowing better and doing it anyway, and finding that the knowing makes the doing sweeter. The best pop has always understood that a bad idea, set to the right beat, can feel like the most honest thing in the room.