Ariana Grande explains key detail from 'Wicked'

Ariana Grande just revealed why she reverted to her “birth name.”

In the 2024 film, Wicked, that has garnered many Oscar nominations for this year, the eternal sunshine hitmaker decided to use her original name for the end credits of the movie.

The star's name read “Ariana Grande-Butera,” her legal name, which is a combination of her mother and father’s surnames.

In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter’s podcast Awards Chatter, Grande revealed why she decided to opt for the change.

“Because that is my full name,” she explained, talking about her childhood and honouring her roots.

The Thank U, Next singer continued, “It’s my birth name, and that was my name when I first saw Wicked when I was a young girl. And I feel like this experience was such a homecoming to myself, my young me, that maybe little pieces of her got lost along the way.

“It felt like a homecoming to her, so this felt like a beautiful celebration of that homecoming and a way of including my full me,” she added.

Ariana Grande, usually uses only her mother’s surname for her projects, mainly due to the reason that she fell out of touch with her dad, Ed Butera, in 2013.