There are some songs that are best untouched, and Monica once thought “The Boy Is Mine” was one of them. That is, until she heard the remix Ariana Grande and producer Max Martin had put together.

“I’ve always said that the song should not be touched, right? And I said that because I felt that it did not need to be redone in the idea of, let’s say, actually doing it the exact way that it was,” Monica explains to ET. “But Ariana and [producer] Max Martin — as soon as I heard this version, I fell in love with it.”

Working and speaking with Ariana, Monica says, also helped in bringing the collaboration to fruition.

“Everything has been directly from her chest and, for me, authenticity, humility, all of those things are key,” Monica says. She adds that it was Ariana’s enthusiasm that ultimately convinced her to do the song.

Ariana’s “The Boy Is Mine (Remix)” is now out, also featuring one-half of the original hit, Brandy. Though the two had put rumors of a feud to rest during their Verzuz battle in 2020, Monica says the new collab further helped heal their relationship, which had briefly given in to the chatter of a beef and became real.

“The process of the new collaboration did a lot of closing the gaps…,” Monica said. “It made it a lot easier just to talk,” she continued, adding she and Brandy have talked more recently than they have in “the last two decades.”

The singer didn’t rule out a future Brandy/Monica collab, saying, “There is a chance, there is for sure.”

Until then, her wish is for fans to “have fun to this record because it is really the rebirth of ‘The Boy Is Mine’ in such a special way.”

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