Ariana Grande reveals why her rarely-used full name will be in Wicked credits
Ariana Grande has explained why she is using her full name in the Wicked credits (Don Arnold/WireImage)
Ariana Grande has explained why she’s using her rarely seen full surname in the credits for the film adaptation of Wicked.
The singer is set to appear as Glinda in the musical, alongside Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard.
But, despite being well-known for her acting and – even more so – pop career as simply Ariana Grande, she is listed in the credits of the Jon M Chu film as Ariana Grande-Butera.
She told Justin Hill on TikTok why she wanted to credit “little girl Ari”, saying: “I feel this experience was such a home-coming for me.
“I feel I came home to myself in a lot of ways, through what I learned from Glinda, from Elphaba. That was my name when I went to see the show when I was 10 years old, and it felt a really lovely way of honouring that. It felt really full circle.”
In February, Grande told Variety that she had to fight “to prove to [Wicked‘s producers] that I could handle taking on another person”, adding: “I had to completely erase pop star Ari, the person they know so well, because it’s harder to believe someone as someone else [if] they’re so branded as one thing. I had to really go all the way to strip that down.”
The Wicked press train has been dominated by Erivo’s reaction to a fan-made poster and, even more so, a whole lot of thirst for Bailey. The Bridgerton star declared himself a “young daddy” during a press junket, then stole the show at a photo-call by wearing short shorts.
Wicked is set to be released on 22 November, with part two scheduled for a year from now.
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