Ariana Grande In Tears As She Recalls Special Friendship With Cynthia Erivo: 'I Was a Different Person Before Meeting Her'

Ariana Grande couldn't help but become emotional as she talked about her Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo and her upcoming film.

In a two-part conversation with Penn Badgley on Podcrushed, Grande was overcome with tears when Erivo was mentioned.

Grande said she was a "different person" before meeting Erivo on the Wicked set.

"I hope we learned a lot from each other, but I learned so much as a person from her," Grande added. "And she loves hard. She is a Capricorn, and she loves hard and honestly and right."

After filming for two years, Grande and Erivo forged a special friendship, even getting matching tattoos signifying their friendship.

"There's something baked into these roles where you're so different from one another that you never know how it can go when you're sharing this experience in a very big way," Grande said about her and Erivo's roles in the upcoming film. "People have needs and their own creative process, and you never know - like, are we gonna be healthy? And, it was just the most symbiotic, beautiful [experience]."

Grande has been very expressive and candid about her friendship with Erivo; she was then reduced to tears as she recalled her gratefulness for working with Erivo, who she describes as "absolutely in their own league of talent."

"There's no one like her," Grande raved about the Grammy and Tony Award winner. "And to just feel like we somehow speak the same language and somehow we're destined to do this together, and to feel safe every single day together and hold space."

Further highlighting their similarities and differences, Grande said that she and Erivo have "similar but different processes" and "similar and different needs."

"To have the love that we have and trust that we have and deep love that we have for each other ... I think it all kind of happened the way it did because of that, and because we were supposed to be in each other's lives. I really do," she added. "I love her so much."

Erivo and Grande will play Elphaba and Glinda, respectively, in the upcoming movie adaptation of Wicked, which will be released on Thanksgiving 2024 in theatres worldwide.

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Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo