{"id":1166247,"date":"2025-11-19T16:27:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/?p=1166247"},"modified":"2025-11-19T16:27:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:27:44","slug":"ariana-grande-cant-stop-touching-cynthia-erivo-and-weve-all-been-complicit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/evan-lambert\/2025\/11\/ariana-grande-cant-stop-touching-cynthia-erivo-and-weve-all-been-complicit\/","title":{"rendered":"Ariana Grande Can\u2019t Stop Touching Cynthia Erivo And We\u2019ve All Been Complicit\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo\u2019s iconic, enviable friendship formed the basis of the original Wicked<\/em> press tour. It dominated the entertainment news cycle for months and shepherded the movie to a $758.7 million worldwide box office cume. Their obvious affection for each other and exuberantly empathetic responses to innocent interview questions spawned memes, clickbait headlines, and listicles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Ariana gave Cynthia the finger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has become one of the most iconically chaotic interviews in the history of entertainment journalism. You know the one. It was the interview that transformed \u201cholding space\u201d into a permanent fixture of the English language. Responding to a nonsensical interview question, Cynthia Erivo tried her best to maintain composure while extending empathy to her openly queer interviewer, despite not understanding what was happening; and Ariana, equally bemused, tried her best to show support for her friend as the latter adlibbed something resembling a complete sentence. Ariana decided that the best way to do this was by lovingly grasping Cynthia\u2019s fingernail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moment highlighted an aspect of Ariana and Cynthia\u2019s friendship that has become a parodied staple of every interview since. These two really love to touch each other. Amateur sketch comedians have portrayed the actresses as sitting in each others\u2019 laps, responding with theatrics to questions as simple as \u201cwhat\u2019s your favorite color,\u201d and even breastfeeding each other.<\/a> (I\u2019ll admit, the latter joke went too far even for me, aka someone who has laughed during a Terrifier<\/em> movie.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, Grande and Erivo stopped by Amy Poehler\u2019s Good Hang<\/em> podcast, which along with Las Culturistas<\/em> has become one of the best outlets for stars to promote a new project. In the episode, Poehler tells Grande about Erivo, “It’s really sweet how you touch each other,\u201d before Grande laughs and Poehler adds, \u201cin a non-sexual way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grande went on to explain, \u201cI channel a lot of energy through my hands. I\u2019m always holding a hand. I\u2019m always squeezing something. I\u2019m always reaching for something.” But she clarified that this wasn\u2019t reserved exclusively for Erivo. \u201cIt’s often who I’m with. I like to channel support or energy or whatever. I didn\u2019t even notice that it was a thing about me until that thing<\/em> happened.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s of course referring to the finger incident, which, by the way, did not end with Grande grasping Erivo\u2019s fingernail. Grande also proceeded to stroke it. “I didn\u2019t know what the f–k was going on,” Grande told Poehler of the infamous finger caress. “I knew it was tender and beautiful, and I just wanted to be supportive\u2026 It felt sweet. It felt beautiful.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And beautiful it was. Haters gonna hate, fakers gonna fake, etc. etc., but the Internet has mostly been here for Grande and Erivo\u2019s powerful, seemingly unbreakable bond. I mean, these two even got matching tattoos on the third day of rehearsals for the first movie \u2014 shortly after meeting for the first time in real life<\/a>. If that\u2019s not proof of deep and lasting platonic love, then what is? I\u2019m accepting submissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if that platonic love between these two women transforms into something involving finger stroking, hair pulling, and hand-holding, then so be it. Friendships like theirs make the world go round, and young women need more non-toxic representations of female friendships on their screen. Plus, not to sound like a hippie, but we should all touch each other more in general. People are lonelier than ever these days, and we could all, every one of us, alleviate that a bit by hugging our friends, even strangers, a bit longer. (But ask for consent first if you\u2019re literally about to hug a stranger.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for new iconic moments in the For Good<\/em> press tour, we\u2019re sadly lacking. Outside of Cynthia Erivo physically guarding Ariana Grande\u2019s body when a man accosted the latter at the Singapore premiere of For Good<\/em>, the press tour hasn\u2019t generated any majorly buzzy moments. Grande and Erivo even had to forgo interviews at the movie\u2019s recent New York premiere because Erivo had lost her voice. Grande didn\u2019t want to do interviews without Erivo at her side, offering further proof that these two had actually become symbiotic on that day when Grande stroked Erivo\u2019s finger, physically fusing their bodies for the rest of time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But For Good<\/em> didn\u2019t really need a major press tour. The first movie was press enough; and plus, it has been our great privilege as normies on the Internet to hold space for Ariana Grande\u2019s sense of touch. May these two never break up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo\u2019s iconic, enviable friendship formed the basis of the original Wicked press tour. It dominated the entertainment news cycle for months and shepherded the movie to a $758.7 million worldwide box office cume.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186664098,"featured_media":1166248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"thoughtcatalog_call_to_action":"","tc_post_redirect":"","thoughtcatalog_is_sponsored_content":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[603230771,603203627],"tags":[],"anchortext":[],"posttemplate":[],"adcampaign":[],"coauthors":[603230171],"class_list":["post-1166247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","category-tv-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ArianaCynthia.jpg","author_meta":null,"photo_credit":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186664098"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1166249,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166247\/revisions\/1166249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1166248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166247"},{"taxonomy":"anchortext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anchortext?post=1166247"},{"taxonomy":"posttemplate","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posttemplate?post=1166247"},{"taxonomy":"adcampaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adcampaign?post=1166247"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1166247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}