Ariana Grande took on those weight loss rumors head-on as she did press for Wicked alongside co-star Cynthia Erivo. Grande, who is a serious contender going into Awards season due to the movie’s critical reception—not to mention Wicked is doing pretty well at the box office too, having already become the highest-grossing movie based on a Broadway musical—has continued to promote the movie even after its release.
Wicked, which is being released in two parts, with the second one set for next year, focuses on the unlikely friendship between Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) as the two attend Shiz University, with the first part of the musical set mostly long before Dorothy ever arrived in Oz. Those familiar with the story are likely to the names from The Wizard of Oz, as Elphaba, will go on to become the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda will become Glinda the Good Witch.
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The Wicked press tour has paired Grande with co-star Cynthia Erivo and has had plenty of highlights, including the banter between the two. But there was a particularly poignant moment that happened during a recent interview with a French reporter who asked Grande about society’s beauty standards and the overwhelming pressure women feel to always look perfect.
How did Grande respond? And what did she have to say about those weight loss rumors that have gotten increasingly stronger during this particular press tour for Wicked?
What did Ariana Grande say about those weight loss rumors?
Grande teared up while addressing weight loss rumors that she deemed as “dangerous,” as costar Cynthia Erivo comforted her. “My goodness. I’m not gonna–” Grande said, visibly trying to hold it together. “I’ve been kind of doing this in front of the public and kind of been a specimen in a petri dish really since I was 16 or 17, so I have heard it all,” Grande shared, adding, “I’ve heard every version of it — of what’s wrong with me. And then you fix it, and then it’s wrong for different reasons. But that’s everything from — even just the simplest thing — your appearance, you know?”
Grande, who began her career as a child actress in the Broadway musical 13 and then rose to fame thanks to the role of Cat Valentine in the Nickelodeon show Victorious and its spinoff Sam & Cat went on to explain that when you’re young it’s “hard to protect yourself from that noise.”
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“I think that it’s something that is uncomfortable no matter what scale you’re experiencing it on,” she said, “even if you go to Thanksgiving dinner, and someone’s granny says, ‘Oh my God, you look skinnier! What happened?’ or ‘You look heavier! What happened?’”
For Grande, being on the receiving end of those comments, no matter who you are, is always bad. “I think in today’s society, there is a comfortability that we shouldn’t have at all — commenting on others’ looks, appearance, what they think is going on behind the scenes or health or how they present themselves,” Grande said, adding that it’s “really dangerous for all parties involved.”
But the star also added that she’s “really lucky” to have a “support system” in place that reminds her that she’s “beautiful” and that she deals with the comments on her appearance by not giving it space anymore. “It’s not welcome,” she stated sternly. “I have work to do, I have a life to live, I have friends to love on, I have so much love, and it’s not invited, so I don’t leave space for it anymore.”
She even had advice for anyone on the receiving end of those kinds of comments, saying, “However, you all can protect yourselves from that noise — whether it’s at a family reunion or online if you gotta block people, I don’t care if you have to delete the app entirely — you keep yourself safe because no one has the right to say s–t.”
Grande had previously addressed her weight loss in a TikTok video in 2023, where she said, “The body that you’ve been comparing my current body to was the unhealthiest version of my body. I was on a lot of antidepressants and drinking on them and eating poorly,” she said at the time. “[I was] at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my healthy, but that in fact wasn’t my healthiest.”