From Ariana Grande to Paris Hilton: Why do famous women keep faking their voices?

Someone make a speedy investment in helium stocks, because everyone is changing their voices at the moment.

Earlier this month, a video of Ariana Grande speaking on a podcast showed the singer very obviously transition from her regular speaking voice to the breathy, sexy baby voice we’ve grown to associate her with over the past few years.

Then, yesterday, queen of the nasal drawl Paris Hilton exposed her real voice while making a speech to Congress about child abuse, where the reality star could be heard speaking in a notably deeper tone.

Pitch switching used to be something you’d typically associate with women constantly deepening their voices, not picking and choosing between pitches, and certainly not the other way around.

Recall Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, the multi-million dollar scammer who faked a deeper voice to appear less effeminate and more of a “serious businesswoman” in the male dominated field of science tech.

But these celebrities are spending the majority of their public life pitched up, only for their gear switches to get caught on camera. So is it all on purpose?

“Having listened to the clips of Ariana Grande and Paris Hilton, my thoughts turn to Margaret Thatcher and the coaching she allegedly received to bring her speaking voice into a lower register,” says vocal coach Roz McLeod. “She was advised that in a world dominated by men — which Parliament was then — she should lose the ‘shrill-sounding’ higher tones in her voice and drop the register to provide more gravitas to be more like the men around her.”

So why has Paris Hilton gone from a high pitch her whole life to a suddenly deeper register, and was she faking the baby voice all along? Maybe not, says McLeod.

“Our voices drop into a lower register as we age, and all sorts of things influence our voices, particularly hormones, which we all know cause boys' voices to change during puberty; it also happens to girls but is less obvious. Pregnancy also affects our voices, and this is perhaps what has happened with Paris Hilton,” McLeod explains. “However, I think it is more of a personal metamorphosis due to a little more maturity and responsibility.”

But her voice isn’t deep for the whole clip. Like Grande, she visibly switches from one sentence to the next. According to BACP accredited psychotherapist Stefan Walters, this is more about persona and levels of comfort than intentional vocal placement. “Sometimes people might develop a unique voice to match certain parts; almost like slipping into a role or character before stepping onto a stage,” Walters says. “I believe that is what we are seeing in these videos of Paris and Ariana. Paris starts off in her relaxed persona, and then switches back into her professional persona as she looks down at her notes and her voice switches.”

Meanwhile, Grande admitted that her vocal change was very purposeful. After her interview clip went viral, the star posted: “I intentionally change my vocal placement (high/low) often depending on how much singing I’m doing. I've always done this.”

McLeod confirms this is a sensible decision from Grande, and likely related more to her singing than any kind of public persona she’s trying to upkeep. “[Grande] may know about the vocal mechanism,” she says, “it is not a bad idea to speak in a higher pitch intermittently as the vocal folds have to switch from a neutral position to becoming longer and thinner. It's a great way to warm up the upper part of her register if she sings later that day.”

And if we were being cynical, we could note that these women’s higher pitched vocal placements also help with their personal branding. Grande has always maintained an airy, light persona in the public eye, in keeping with her style of music, and Hilton’s airhead heiress act still comes in handy as a personal brand today, even if no one’s bought it for yonks.

So maybe it’s not so much a case of these women faking their voices, but using them to their advantage. That’s not to advise everyone else to give it a go though - I don’t think I could take a world of reverse Elizabeth Holmeses.