Can’t understand half of what celebs are even saying these days? Don’t worry. It turns out even the lofty enlightened residents of Tinseltown can’t even translate their own bulls***.
Ariana Grande has admitted she has no idea what anyone was saying during the now-infamous interview she did with her fellow “Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo, in which the pair appeared absolutely enamored by the interviewer saying “queer” people were “holding space” with the lyrics of a song from the play-turned-film.
In the interview, “Out” magazine writer Tracy Gilchrist perplexingly told Erivo that “People are taking the lyrics of 'Defying Gravity' and really holding space with that and feeling power in that,” at which Erivo seemed completely overcome.
“I didn’t know that. That’s…that’s really powerful,” the breathless actress responded, clutching her neck as Grande sympathetically grabbed her hand.
Well, her finger. Which was weird.
ariana and cynthia break down the “holding space” meme 😭 pic.twitter.com/EWtqqXqm83
— ale (@17POSTIONS) December 7, 2024
Now, it turns out both Grande and Erivo say they actually had no idea what Gilchrist was talking about.
“So I didn’t know what any part of it meant,” Grande recently admitted in a video interview with Variety. “I remember asking myself ‘am I OK? Did I not hear something?'”
“I didn’t understand the first sentence. And then I definitely didn’t understand what was happening — how [Erivo] responded. I was like, ‘Oh, what did she say? What did you hear?’ And I just wanted to be there ’cause I knew something big was happening, and I didn’t know how to be there,” she went on.
“After a while, I didn’t know how to be there,” Erivo added, saying she didn't even know what "holding space" meant while she was pretending to be overcome by it.
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Grande explained all she knew to do in all the awkwardness was to grab Erivo’s hand to offer comfort, even though she had no clue what Erivo was so emotional about.
“I was like, ‘Cause she looks like she’s about to cry again, and I’m gonna grab this ’cause I think you might need something. And I don’t know what the tapping was about, but that happened,” she laughed.
Of course, they could have both just looked at Gilchrist and said “I’m sorry, what the heck are you talking about?” Which probably would have gotten a much better public response than pretending to understand all the “queer” nonsense and talking about how everyone from the witches to the animals in Oz are gay.
But that would have involved acting like an actual human being for two seconds, so I can understand their struggle.