Ariana Grande Shares Career Change That Will ‘Scare The Absolute S**t’ Out Of Her Fans

Ariana Grande says she’ll “always” make music — but also wants to spread her wings.

The “Wicked” star announced Wednesday while discussing her career, which includes two Grammys, six No. 1 albums and multiple Guinness World Records that the next decade will see her pivot away from pop and back to her original passion: musical theater.

“I’m going to say something so scary,” Grande told “Las Culturistas” podcast hosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. “It’s going to scare the absolute shit out of my fans and everyone. I love them, and they will deal, and we will be here forever.”

“I’m always going to make music,” the 31-year-old continued. “I’m always going to go on stage. I’m always going to do pop stuff, I pinky promise. But I don’t think doing it at the rate that I’ve been doing for the past 10 years is where I see the next 10 years.”

Grande has been on a whirlwind press tour for the upcoming adaptation of Broadway’s “Wicked,” in which she plays a benevolent witch opposite Cynthia Erivo’s titular one, and said Wednesday that it reminded her of how important this creative outlet really is for her.

“I love musical theater, reconnecting with this part of myself who started in musical theater and who loves comedy,” said Grande. “And it heals me to do that, finding roles to use these parts of myself and put them in little homes and characters and bits and voices and songs.”

Many were apparently confused when Grande suddenly changed her voice completely mid-interview in June while promoting the film, but the singer later explained that she spent “a long time playing a character every single day” and has a really large, trained vocal range.

Grande and Erivo play good and wicked witches, respectively, in the upcoming film.
Grande and Erivo play good and wicked witches, respectively, in the upcoming film. Don Arnold/WireImage/Getty Images

Grande also slammed the double standard at the time of male actors being praised for their “brilliant” physical transformations while women like her are placed “under such a microscope” of judgment and said that it’s “a strange thing” to personally experience.

While the former child star has released seven studio albums since 2013, Grande did get her start on Broadway in the musical “13” when she was still a teenager — and said Wednesday that the song-centric theatrical vocation is still her true “heart.”

However, Grande assured her devoted fans that she’ll never turn her back on music entirely: “Art also is what feeds me — in whatever capacity it is. I’ll always be doing and creating six different things at once. I don’t see that going anywhere. I just see it shifting.”

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