Ariana Grande isn’t a stranger to criticism, but when it comes to her voice, she isn’t playing around. The 31-year-old Wicked star sat down with Evan Ross Katz on the “Shut Up Evan” podcast on Tuesday, July 9, and she addressed the backlash she received over what sounded like a Glinda-esque octave fluctuation during a previous interview.
“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!’” Ariana said, referring to the double standards of the entertainment industry. “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.”
While pointing out that voice fluctuation is “a normal thing people do, especially if you have a large range,” Ariana also noted that she had just spent “a long time playing a character every single day,” referring to her Wicked film character, Glinda.
Ariana Grande addresses voice change in viral video:
“habit (speaking like this for two years) and also vocal health. i intentionally change my vocal placement (high/low) often depending on how much singing i’m doing. i’ve always done this BYE.” pic.twitter.com/KpKBlaq6sV
— Pop Spectator (@PopSpectator) June 18, 2024
“[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 added.
Last month, a video of the “7 Rings” singer went viral from her “PopCrushed” podcast interview, in which she was heard drastically changing her voice from high to low. After the clip went viral on social media, Ariana clarified that she “intentionally” does this with her speaking voice.
“Habit (speaking like this for two years) and also vocal health. I intentionally change my vocal placement (high / low) often depending on how much singing I’m doing,” she commented on the TikTok clip, before adding, “I’ve always done this BYE.”
In part 1 of the upcoming Wicked film, Ariana sings her character’s challenging Broadway musical tunes, which required her to reach higher pitches — specifically in the hits “Defying Gravity” and “Popular.”
While speaking with Penn Badgley on “PopCrushed,” Ariana opened up about her vocal training to play Glinda, who is an “opera soprano” unlike the pop star’s singing voice.
“It’s just a very different placement in the voice, and I was just training it and training it because even though the notes were there, it’s a different placement and singing them completely differently so I wanted to train my muscles,” Ariana explained. “I would go every day and train to learn the tools that I needed to sing and to be Glinda through and through.”
