Ariana Grande thinks Glinda and Elphaba are ‘in love with each other’ in ‘Wicked’

On January 3, 2025By Littum

Ariana Grande opens up further about Glinda’s sexual orientation after saying in November that her Evil character “might be a little in the closet.”

In one Black Cover story published Thursday (Jan. 2), the singer-actress was asked to elaborate on her thoughts on Glinda’s possible queerness in relation to Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba, with whom the “good witch” shares an intense, passionate love-hate relationship. The two women’s dynamic is only ever referred to as a friendship in the original Broadway musical, but in Grande’s eyes, it may be something more.

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“I think she’s someone who loves so much, and I think that transcends gender,” the REM Beauty founder told the release of Glinda. “I also think that the ways that she loves Elphaba so much, and the forgiveness and the unconditional love that they share — I think they’re in love with each other.”

“I know, yeah, it’s platonic…,” she amended before cutting herself off, not wanting to reveal too much ahead of Jon M. Chu’s second Evil film. “But we’ll talk more in-depth about that in movie two.”

Author Gregory Maguire, who wrote the bestselling novel on which the Broadway show is based, also shared his thoughts on the sexual tension in the book between the two characters in an interview in December. “It was intentional, and it was modest and restrained and refined in such a way that you could imagine that one of the two young women had felt more than the other and had not wanted to say it,” he told . you. “Or maybe because a novelist can’t write every scene, maybe when the lights were off and the writer was out smoking in the back alley, the girls had sex in bed on the way to the Emerald City. I wanted to suggest this possibility, but I didn’t want to come with a declarative statement about.”

Grande’s new interview comes over a month after the first one Evil came to cinemas on November 22, 2024, and quickly became it top-grossing film adaptation of a Broadway musical ever. Its successor, Wicked: Too Goodarriving almost exactly a year later in the fall of 2025.

Grande previously spoke about her character’s sexuality in a November interview with Gay Timesand frankly told the business, “Maybe Glinda is a little in the closet.”

“You never know! Give it some time!” she had added. “I mean, it’s just a true love. And I think it transcends sexuality, it’s just a kind of deep security in each other.”

The “We Can’t Be Friends” musician’s leading lady agreed at the time. “I think Elphie … she goes wherever the wind goes,” Erivo told the publication. “I think she loves Glinda, I think she loves love. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with celebrating the deep connection that they both have … it’s a relationship, it’s real love.”

See Grande, Erivo and Chu on the cover of Black under.

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