Ariana Grande joined her “Wicked” co-star Cynthia Erivo on the cover of Vanity Fair and fired back at critics of her speaking voice, which had a lighter and breathier register during and after the filming of the upcoming two-part Universal musical. The Grammy winner stars in “Wicked” as Glinda the Good and spent nearly two years filming the project.
“There is a part of the world that isn’t familiar with what it takes to transform your voice, whether it’s singing or taking on a different dialect for a role or doing a character voice for something,” Grande said in response to the internet often trolling her airier Glinda speaking voice.
“When it’s a male actor that does it, it’s acclaimed,” she added. “There are definitely jokes that are made as well, but it’s always after being led with praise: ‘Oh, wow, he was so lost in the role.’ And that’s just a part of the job, really. Tale as old as time being a woman in this industry. You are treated differently, and you are under a microscope in a way that some people aren’t.”
Criticism of Grande’s speaking voice reached its peak over the summer when a clip of her slipping into different registers during an interview on Penn Badgley’s “Podcrushed” podcast went viral on social media. The singer took to TikTok at the time to confront the mockery by writing: “I intentionally change my vocal placement (high/low) often depending on how much singing i’m doing,” she wrote. “I’ve always done this BYE.”
“It’s something that I’m just really proud of,” Grande now told Vanity Fair about her voice. “Part of why I did want to engage [on TikTok] is because I am really proud of my hard work and of the fact that I did give 100% of myself, including my physicality, to this role. I am proud of that, so I wanted to protect it.”
The hoopla around her speaking voice is hardly the first time Grande has had to battle public perception of her. It’s been happening her entire career.
“The back-and-forth throughout the course of my career has been really hard to navigate mentally,” Grande said. “I was this approachable, funny redhead on Nickelodeon and everyone liked me. And then I had one too many hit records, and everyone decided that I was an evil diva. And then other terrible things happened, and all of a sudden I was this hero and this victim.”
“Honestly, it’s taken me a lot of hard work to be able to last this long and to heal certain parts of my relationship to fame and to what I do because of these tabloids that have been trying to destroy me since I was 19 years old,” she continued later. “But you know what? I’m 31 years old and I’m not a perfect person, but I am definitely deeply good, and I’m proud of who I’m becoming. I will never let disreputable evil tabloids ruin my life or my perception of what is real and good.”
Head over to Vanity Fair’s website to read Grande’s cover story in its entirety. “Wicked” opens in theaters Nov. 22 from Universal.
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