For the seventh track from her sixth studio album, positions, Ariana recruits Ty Dolla $ign. “safety net” marks the first collaboration between the two artists. In an interview, $ign talks about the track calling it “a melodic and amazing tune”.

In early October, rumors of the collaboration circulated on the networks after the supposed tracklist of the album was leaked under a different name as “no remedy”. And on October 24, 2020, Ariana uploaded a photo on her Twitter of the album’s tracklist, thus confirming the collaboration and the title of the track.