The Ariana Grande Voice Change Might Be an Austin Butler Situation
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There is no grand Ariana Grande voice-change conspiracy, guys. She just has a particularly large vocal range and happened to get stuck in the Glinda the Good Witch register.
In June social media users noticed a sudden dip in Grande’s vocal register during a podcast interview and immediately began suspecting some kind of Paris Hilton–esque false voice situation. “This voice change is sending me 😭😭 regular Ariana was coming out for a second,” posted one X-user over the clip. The suggestion being that Grande’s normally high-pitched tone is some kind of affectation.
In actuality, according to Grande, the better comparison would be to Austin Butler getting stuck in his Elvis Presley voice. “I did just spend a long time playing a character every single day,” she said on the Shut Up Evan podcast on July 9, referring to her role as Glinda in the Wicked movie. “[I trained] my voice to do different things for a long time before leaving for London and before any of this; muscle memory is a real thing.” She noted that changes in your voice are normal, especially if you have a large range, as we all know Grande does.
She continued, “I mean, you see male actors, sure, people make jokes here and there as well, but it’s always after the fact. ‘Oh, wow, how dedicated to his craft! What an amazing transformation! He’s a brilliant performer!’ But then it’s like, god forbid I sneeze like Glinda or something, [then] it’s just that I am crazy…It’s the weirdest thing.”
The singer had actually already addressed the voice in a TikTok comment. Ariana Grande explained the voice change was “habit (speaking like this for two years) and also vocal health :) 🍵.” She added, “I intentionally change my vocal placement (high / low) often depending on how much singing i’m doing 😭 i’ve always done this BYE.”
Originally Appeared on Glamour
