Ariana Grande has only graced the Met Gala red carpet twice—making a memorable debut in 2018 and returning as a performer last year. With awards season behind her and Wicked: For Good on the horizon, Grande opted to sit out this year’s fashion spectacle, having maintained a relative low profile in recent weeks. She skipped the Met Gala entirely. The star was last photographed with her boyfriend, Ethan Slater, seeing Little Shop of Horrors in New York City on April 28.
In February, Ariana Grande opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about how playing Glinda in Wicked has allowed fans to connect with her on a more personal level. “It’s a beautiful thing to feel like the work that I’m doing or have done is kind of, I suppose, I don’t know, enough or louder or whatever it is,” she shared. “This feeling that people are seeing me—like, actually me—it’s so silly because I’ve been seen for so long, but it feels like it’s maybe for the first time and it’s just different.”
She went on to explain why this moment in her career feels so different, reflecting on the contrast between her pop star persona and her true self. “At a certain point, you get tired of that [pop star] character, because it is a character,” she admitted. “There are pieces of you and your story that are woven throughout your songwriting, but then, because of the way it travels and becomes sensationalized, it gets away from you. And beneath all of it is just a girl from Boca [Raton, Florida,] who loves art. I think that’s why it’s been such a deeply healing gift to disappear into this character—to take off one mask and put on another.”
Playing Glinda, Grande shared, “became this beautiful evolution of getting to know myself beneath it all.” Reflecting on the transformation, she added, “I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I love this person underneath the drag.’”
