The pop star has been spending her time filming the Wicked movies, in which she’ll star as Glinda.
Ariana Grande had a wicked good response to criticism she’s been receiving in the past few months. Since being cast in Jon M. Chu’s upcoming live-action film adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked, the 29-year-old pop star has been open about wanting to dedicate her time to portraying Glinda the Good Witch — something that’s upset some fans who’ve been waiting since 2020’s Positions for new music from her.
Some have even complained that Grande is no longer a singer now that she’s been shooting the films (while still focusing on rolling out products for her R.E.M. beauty company). But in a Friday (Jan. 20) TikTok, the “Thank U, Next” musician proved that this definitely isn’t the case.
Swaddled in a chunky knit, hooded sweater — baby pink, Glinda’s signature color — Grande sang a gorgeous, a capella cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz with a tone and vibrato that Judy Garland herself would have been proud of.
“Wanted to sing you a little something but don’t want to sing anything that is not ‘Ozian’ at the moment :)” she captioned the video. “Keeping to my little bubble for now … done with lots of love.”
The TikTok also included text callouts quoting the “why aren’t you a singer anymore?” comment, to which she responded by writing: “*is literally on set filming two musical movies all day every day*”
And if you’re wondering, there’s a reason she chose a hooded garment for the video. Though she’s already publicly debuted the blonde ‘do she got for Wicked, Grande wrote that she wanted to keep Glinda’s hairstyle concealed while filming the TikTok, shot in the middle of getting ready for her day on set.
It’s been more than a year since it was announced in November 2021 that Grande would be playing Glinda opposite Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, in the highly anticipated Wicked adaptation. The following April, Chu revealed that they’d be splitting the project into two films, the first of which is set to arrive in December 2024.
In May, Grande broke the news to fans that she was’t working on a new album and didn’t have plans to anytime soon, instead wanting to focus her energies on Wicked. “That is going to have every piece of me, every minute, every ounce of my heart, my time, my soul, my everything that I can give it,” she said at the time. “My hands are quite full with a lot of other ‘thrillifying’ work at the moment. I am spending all of my time with Glinda.”
