Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber had a winner on their hands in 2020 with “Stuck With U,” which ended up topping the Hot 100 chart. It turns out the two nearly dropped a collaboration years before that, though, as it seems Grande actually featured on an early version of “Wish You Would,” which went on to appear on the deluxe edition of Bieber’s new album Justice, but featuring Quavo instead of Grande.
This is according to BMW Kenny, who co-produced “Wish You Would.” He told Metro that the song was initially meant for Bieber’s 2015 album Purpose and that even before Grande hopped on the track, the original version featured Cody Simpson. Kenny said:
“I actually believe there is a version with Ariana Grande out there, somewhere in the computers on the hard drive. The first version was with Cody Simpson, then they put Ariana Grande on there. I don’t know what happened with the song, but it didn’t make Purpose, so it just sat in a vault. He put out Changes, but sometimes when you do an album, you gotta catalogue the songs.”
He also noted the song was dropped from Purpose in favor of one of the handful of songs on the album that Skrillex produced.
Meanwhile, both Grande and Bieber have been busy in recent days. Grande made a guest appearance on Demi Lovato’s new album and Bieber celebrated Easter by releasing his surprise EP Freedom.
