Ariana Grande’s Wicked Press Tour Seems To Be Getting More Attention Than Wicked Itself

Next week, Wicked finally comes out. The movie, the first in a two-part adaptation of a big Broadway musical, stars Ariana Grande as Galinda. Grande, who apparently just looks and talks like that now, has been promoting the film hard for basically an entire year, to the point where her own recent album eternal sunshine seemed to come and go without much notice. Grande goes everywhere with co-star Cynthia Erivo these days, and she is working very hard to eliminate all memories of her donut-licking pop-star self. She seems to be doing a very good job, as these things go, since she goes viral about once a day.

There was, for instance, the shocked and possibly horrified expression that Grande made upon hearing that a red-carpet interviewer met his partner and “95%” of his friends through a Grande fan forum.

ariana grande reacts to an interviewer who says he met his partner and 95% of his friends through the arianator fandom pic.twitter.com/zzz8pDAuaD

— Ariana Grande Today ☼ (@ArianaToday) November 13, 2024

Their was Grande and Erivo instantly losing their minds upon learning that one of their interviewers was in the Broadway show Avenue Q.

There was Grande on Las Culturistas, reading out her Change.org petition for Disney World to keep its Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror open in its current state. Grande is entirely correct that this is a sick-ass ride, and I would love to know when she became tall enough to take part.

There was an inexplicable sound effect during a fashion-related red carpet interview.

“i don’t know what the common misconception is at all. that’s not a fashion question.” and then the sound effect !??! i’m in tears pic.twitter.com/rQYnev8cx7

— vincent (@defaultneedy) November 15, 2024

There was some kind of meme reenactment with Jimmy Fallon? I don’t know what this is.

ariana and jimmy recreating this is KILLING MEEKSKW pic.twitter.com/ph3voO35Qx

— cameron (@cambeserious) November 15, 2024

There was a surprising amount of crying.

are they okay pic.twitter.com/ze6Yl79QOj

— ‎ً (@greatestselena) November 13, 2024

There was also an apology for all the crying.

There was a thing about Grande correcting a commonly misheard lyric from one of the Wicked songs. This is not strictly press tour-related, but there was also the story about Wicked dolls being pulled from shelves because the packaging was sending kids to the porn site Wicked.com, not the actual website for the movie. In any case, Grande has been saying that she wants to do a lot more acting — a lot more musical-theater acting, in particular — so her pop stardom might be going on the back burner. We could see more press tours like this in the future.

Ariana talking about her future and career on the Las Culturistas Podcast

♬ original sound – gimmethembables

That was a lot of stuff about the press tour for a movie that I don’t intend to go see! Longtime Stereogum readers will not be shocked to learn that Scott made me post this. (I changed the headline. It was supposed to be “Ariana Grande’s Wicked Press Tour Has Actually Been Pretty Charming” — that’s his assessment, not mine.) Scott went and found all the links and everything. The man is unhinged. Pray for him.