Ahead of the upcoming release of Wicked, which is set to hit theatres on November 22, Grande has revealed that she will be going by a slightly different name in the credits – Ariana Grande-Butera – in order to pay homage to her father Edward Butera.
During an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the star opened up about her dad’s “sweet” reaction to the edit.
“Oh man, he cried,” Grande told the outlet, clearly getting emotional. “Whoa. Yeah, he cried. I surprised him.”
And of course, the 31-year-old wanted to cherish the moment forever so she secretly filmed it.
“I pulled it up on my laptop and I recorded him secretly,” she continued. “I told him I wanted to show him the typography of the credits because he’s a graphic designer, he loves that stuff. It was a big surprise and he cried.
“It was very emotional,” she added.
The director of Wicked, Jon M. Chu, lent the ‘Into You’ singer a hand in pulling off the sentimental stunt.
“Before he was supposed to send me – sorry Universal, the cat’s out of the bag – he sent me the credits,” she recalled. “He knew that people were going to start seeing it soon and he was scared someone was going to talk about it before he got to see it, and we surprised him.”
But after being known as Ariana Grande her entire professional career, why was it important for the star to acknowledge her father’s name too?
“[Butera] was my name when I first saw Wicked,” she said. “I do feel like this role and this project helped me sort of come home to little Ari. Maybe little pieces of her got lost along the way in this crazy industry and I’m so grateful for the ways in which this experience led me back.
“I kind of just wanted to capture that,” she added. “It doesn’t feel small to me either.”
In the upcoming film, Grande portrays Glinda, ‘The Good Witch’, while her co-star Cynthia Erivo takes on the role of Elphaba, the so-called ‘Bad’ Witch as the pair navigate their newfound friendship after an encounter with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, played by Jeff Goldblum.
The movie also sees stars like Bridgerton’s Johnathan Bailey, as well as the icon that is Michelle Yeoh make an appearance.
Wicked is set to be released in theatres on November 22.