Ariana Grande Can’t Stop Touching Cynthia Erivo And We’ve All Been Complicit
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s 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. Their obvious affection for each other and exuberantly empathetic responses to innocent interview questions spawned memes, clickbait headlines, and listicles.
Then Ariana gave Cynthia the finger.
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 “holding space” 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’s fingernail.
The moment highlighted an aspect of Ariana and Cynthia’s 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’ laps, responding with theatrics to questions as simple as “what’s your favorite color,” and even breastfeeding each other. (I’ll admit, the latter joke went too far even for me, aka someone who has laughed during a Terrifier movie.)
More recently, Grande and Erivo stopped by Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, which along with Las Culturistas 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,” before Grande laughs and Poehler adds, “in a non-sexual way.”
Grande went on to explain, “I channel a lot of energy through my hands. I’m always holding a hand. I’m always squeezing something. I’m always reaching for something.” But she clarified that this wasn’t reserved exclusively for Erivo. “It’s often who I’m with. I like to channel support or energy or whatever. I didn’t even notice that it was a thing about me until that thing happened.”
She’s of course referring to the finger incident, which, by the way, did not end with Grande grasping Erivo’s fingernail. Grande also proceeded to stroke it. “I didn’t 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… It felt sweet. It felt beautiful.”
And beautiful it was. Haters gonna hate, fakers gonna fake, etc. etc., but the Internet has mostly been here for Grande and Erivo’s powerful, seemingly unbreakable bond. I mean, these two even got matching tattoos on the third day of rehearsals for the first movie — shortly after meeting for the first time in real life. If that’s not proof of deep and lasting platonic love, then what is? I’m accepting submissions.
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’re literally about to hug a stranger.)
As for new iconic moments in the For Good press tour, we’re sadly lacking. Outside of Cynthia Erivo physically guarding Ariana Grande’s body when a man accosted the latter at the Singapore premiere of For Good, the press tour hasn’t generated any majorly buzzy moments. Grande and Erivo even had to forgo interviews at the movie’s recent New York premiere because Erivo had lost her voice. Grande didn’t 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’s finger, physically fusing their bodies for the rest of time.
But For Good didn’t 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’s sense of touch. May these two never break up.
