Ariana Grande went from performing on Saturday Night Live last night to presenting at the Oscars this evening. The singer and Wicked actress stepped out on the red carpet, wearing a giant pink bubble dress by Giambattista Valli that paid homage to her character Glinda. Grande’s co-star Cynthia Erivo will also be presenting, likely with her.

 

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Erivo and Grande last went to the Super Bowl together to promote the film. The trailer for the project debuted at the time.

At the end of 2023, Grande reflected on how much playing Glinda changed her. Grande and Erivo spent most of the year filming Wicked and finished the project in 2024, as the Screen Actors Guild strike had paused production and delayed its end date.

“One of the most transformative, most challenging, and yet happiest and most special years of my life,” she began. “There were so many beautiful and yet polarized feelings. I’ve never felt more at the mercy of and in acceptance of what life was screaming to teach me. I’ve never felt more fulfilled by or present in my work, being able to cherish every moment.”

She added, “I have everything I could have possibly given of my heart and of myself to the projects I was fortunate enough to be a part of and learned so much from every brilliant, beautiful, soul that I had the privilege of creating art with and crossing paths with…I have never felt more pride or joy or love while simultaneously feeling so deeply misunderstood by people who don’t know me, who piece whispers together and make what they want out of me and their assumptions of my life.”

She described herself as feeling “fiercely protected” by her loved ones and touched on how her performance as Galinda (Glinda’s real name in Wicked) truly shifted her.

“I am so eternally grateful for all of the feelings I was lucky enough to feel so deeply this year. Mine and Galinda’s alike,” she wrote. “The unfathomably hard ones and the inexplicably happy ones. I feel more human than ever. I feel more deeply than ever. I feel softer and stronger, all at once.”

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