Film

Ariana Grande wore a pink ‘Gay Pride’ hoodie on the set of Wicked and Gelphie shippers are gagged

The newly-shared picture shows Ariana Grande on her first day on set (X/PopBase)

A new picture of Ariana Grande on the set of Wicked has surfaced ahead of Part Two’s release which has sent Gelphie shippers into a tailspin, with Gaylinda truthers declaring the star was “method acting” and “fully getting into character”.

Jon M Chu’s version of the stage musical – which itself was based on Gregory Maguire’s revisionist Wizard of Oz novel – stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, who becomes known as the Wicked Witch of the West, and Ariana Grande as Galinda, later Glinda, the Good Witch.

When the first part of the two-film adaption was released in November 2024 it smashed box office records and tracks from the movie rocketed up the music charts.

The new image, posted by entertainment news account Pop Base on X, shows Grande sitting on an uncovered mattress – possibly an early design of Glinda’s bed – and reading what could be a script whilst wearing a pair of high heels, straight leg jeans and a pink Balenciaga hoodie with the words ‘Gay Pride’ printed on the front.

“Ariana Grande sporting a gay pride hoodie while rehearsing for her role as Glinda in ‘Wicked.’,” the post was captioned.

The image seemingly confirms a statement Grande made on the Wicked press tour last year where she discussed first rehearsing with her co-star Cynthia Erivo when they were both sporting Balenciaga hoodies.

“Our first day of rehearsals, we were both wearing Balenciaga hoodies. Mine was pink and said ‘gay’,” Grande said during the interview with a gesture across her chest where the word was printed, “and her’s was black and said Balenciaga.”

Gelphie shippers hopped on the post quicker than Elphaba on her broom and declared the hoodie as proof that Grande’s character Glinda is not as straight as she seems.

“Kitchen sporting a fork while rehearsing for her role as fork in ‘kitchen.’,” one user wrote.

“YURIANA 😭😭😭😭😭😭🩷🩷🩷🩷,” another said.

“She said Gelphie right,” a third wrote.

Wicked has long resonated with LGBTQ+ people due to its themes of otherness, prejudice and equality, with many fans of both the book, which was written by a gay author, and the musical viewing the enemies-to-friends relationship between Elphaba and Glinda as having some seriously sapphic subtext.

Many Gelphie fans, who over the years have created countless fanfics and pieces of fan art for their two favourite witches, believe Glinda represents compulsory heterosexuality and is a lesbian woman compelled by patriarchal, heteronormative society to feel an attraction to men, namely Fiyero.

For instance, fans have noted that a tiny section in Glinda of Oz by L Frank Baum – the 14th and final book in the series which was published a year after Baum’s death in 1919 – could be read as evidence that Glinda is a lesbian.

A Project Gutenberg edition of the book reads: “Glinda, the good sorceress of Oz, sat in the grand court of her palace, surrounded by her maids of honour, a hundred of the most beautiful girls of the fairyland of Oz.”

People have interpreted Glinda choosing to live in a palace with a bunch of very pretty ladies as rather homosexual behaviour.

The interpreted queerness between Glinda and Elphaba is something the book’s author, Gregory Maguire, has also suggested might be true.

In an interview with Them, Maguire said he “wanted to give that level of complexity to Oz” for it to be “believable” – this “included sexual orientation and sexual diversity”. 

In his novel, Elphaba and Glinda share a kiss. The scene reads: “She put her face against Glinda’s and kissed her. ‘Hold out, if you can,’ she murmured, and kissed her again. ‘Hold out, my sweet.’

“…It was astounding how quickly she became camouflaged in the ragamuffin variety of street life on the Emerald City. Or maybe it was foolish tears blurring Glinda’s vision. Elphaba hadn’t cried, of course. Her head had turned quickly as she stepped down, not to hide her tears but to soften the fact of their absence. But the sting, to Glinda, was real.”

Maguire said of the romantic tension in the scene: “That was intentional, and it was modest and restrained and refined in such a way that one could imagine that one of those two young women had felt more than the other and had not wanted to say it. 

“Or perhaps because a novelist can’t write every scene, perhaps when the lights were out and the novelist was out having a smoke in the back alley, the girls had sex in the bed on the way to the Emerald City.

“I wanted to propose this possibility, but I did not want to make a declarative statement about [it].”

Ariana Grande, however, has expressed surprise at how, ahem, graphic some Gelphie fan content can be.

The star, who once said Glinda was “a little bit queer”, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about “the Gelphie stuff” and admitted she wished she could “unsee some things”, adding: “I had a feeling but I didn’t know it would be on this scale or this graphic.”

More:

Please login or register to comment on this story.

Register to save articles and more. It'll only take a minute and it's free.
JOIN US TODAY!