November 21, 2025

ACE OF SPADES: Hollywood Is Dying and Good Riddance.

“Dying” is overstated. But they are experiencing a reduction in status, a loss of wealth and social position, which for almost everyone, and particularly for narcissists, is a deathly bitter pill.

* * * * * * * *

The palm-fingering Weird Sisters of the gay Oz movie have been put on hold, possibly because the studio just doesn’t want them weirding the public out before the second part of Wickeddebuts.

Wacko Wicked Press Tour Put on Ice After Erivo’s Voice Fails and Grande Opts Out “In Solidarity” — Did Universal Pull the Plug on Weird Interviews?November 18, 2025

The Wicked: For Good [the part two sequel] press tour was abruptly suspended in New York City just days before the movie’s release, with Hollywood outlets claiming Cynthia Erivo “lost her voice” and Ariana Grande refused to continue press appearances without her.

But the official narrative isn’t sitting well with online observers. After all, since when does a singer temporarily losing her voice require a full-blown solidarity pact from her co-star, complete with the studio shutting down scheduled interviews?

It’s a question fans, influencers, and industry watchers have been asking nonstop since the news broke. Speculation has only intensified because the Wicked press tour had already become something of a spectacle for reasons Universal probably didn’t anticipate.

Long before the Wicked: For Good press tour was pulled, fans noticed something unusual about the promotional circuit. Instead of straightforward discussions about the film, fans were treated to a highlight reel of baffling moments featuring Grande and Erivo seemingly locked in their own private wavelength — one that didn’t always translate to the rest of the audience. Or, you know, Planet Earth…

Here, a dirty man vigorously shook Ariana Grande’s hand in a “hail the victor” sort of way. She pretended her arm was injured, and her lesbian co-star kissed it to “make it better.” This guy isn’t a rando; it’s Marc Platt, producer of the movie. He’s promoting the movie, too.

Erivo always seems on the edge of a panic attack or nervous breakdown so Ariana Grande is always soothing her with uncomfortab-to-look-at hand holding.

Sometimes it’s just finger-holding.

If it sounds like I’m implying a lesbian relationship, I’m not necessarily claiming that. But I am claiming that they are definitely putting on a show of lesbian touching for the largely-gay fan base of the movie. Almost every gay-crazy twitter account is celebrating this touchy-touchy cringefest, some saying “We’re winning!” As in, “gays and lesbians are winning, just look at these Hollywood adult pretenders engaging in lesbian hand-play.” Erivo is a very out lesbian, and Ariana Grande is either a convert or else is just role-playing. Gay 4 Pay, as they say.

There’s another cringe-inducing element to Grande, as Kara Kennedy writes in a likely paywalled-posted at the Free Press:  In ‘Wicked,’ There’s a Very Thin Elephant in the Room.

Since the release of the first film, Grande hasn’t explicitly addressed any concerns about her weight loss. But last December, when an interviewer asked how she deals with the pressure to always look perfect, she welled up and said “I’ve heard every version . . .of what’s wrong with me”—before saying she thinks it’s “dangerous” to live in a society where “if you go to Thanksgiving dinner and someone’s granny says, ‘Oh my God, you look skinnier! What happened?’”

“No one has the right to say shit,” she said.

When Grande did address fans’ concerns about her health, via a TikTok video in 2023, she claimed that those who point to old pictures of her looking healthier are in fact idealizing “the unhealthiest version of my body,” adding: “I was on a lot of antidepressants and drinking on them.”

She then asked for universal silence on the subject, saying we should all be “less comfortable commenting on people’s bodies. . . healthy, unhealthy, big, small, this, that.”

Grande’s comments have been met with overwhelming support from the same progressive media that once complained about “Disney’s teeny, tiny princesses.” “Ariana Grande Doesn’t Owe the Internet an Explanation of Her Weight Loss,” one headline scolded; another praised her for addressing “body-shaming” critics in her “heartbreaking” TikTok. The public has been instructed: Stand down. We look on as she wastes away, our tongues tied. Ariana is taking no further questions at this time.

And maybe silence is her prerogative. Maybe it is upsetting for strangers to ask, based on your appearance, if you’re okay. I guess it would be nice for famous people if we didn’t have opinions on their bodies. But we do. We always will. Their bodies, often, are part of the reason they’re famous. And it feels bizarre that viewers who flock to the theaters to feast their eyes on a spectacle should be told not to comment on what they see.

* * * * * * * *

And this is where the issue stops being abstract and becomes visceral. Mothers—especially mothers of daughters—have always been the first to sense when the culture is drifting into dangerous territory. They are the ones who watch their children inhale these images like oxygen, the ones who know that girls mostly do not dream of being “healthy” in the clinical sense; they dream of being beautiful and they dream of being chosen. When a celebrity appears on-screen looking as fragile as a porcelain doll, it’s personal. It’s the question every mother asks herself at some point: Is this the body my daughter will believe she must grow into?

For years, celebrities have acted as role models when it’s convenient for them to do so—when they can polish up their profiles by speaking about voting, or mental health, or recycling. But when being an influencer becomes inconvenient, they try to slip out of it. Miley Cyrus insisted she wasn’t a role model right after her chaotic post-Disney rebrand but that didn’t stop her haircut and wardrobe from instantly reshaping the aesthetic landscape for millions of girls. Female celebrities might not want that great power, but they’ve got it—and they ought to handle it with care. Instead of telling the millions who pay to watch their work: I owe you nothing.

In the end, the question isn’t whether Grande is too thin. It’s whether she will one day, like [Meghan] Trainor, admit that the body she insisted was beautiful wasn’t actually healthy. For now, we’re not allowed to talk about what’s standing right in front of us—a gorgeously clad frame that millions of girls have watched walking the red carpet on TikTok this week—even as their mothers, who came of age in the era of heroin chic models, get a weary sense of déjà vu.

Perhaps the producers of a film that takes place in the same universe as 1939’s beloved Wizard of Oz wanted to really adhere to the source material: Judy Garland Filmed The Wizard of Oz Under Grueling Conditions. The studio put the teen actor on a strict diet and encouraged her to take “pep pills,” a move that eventually resulted in her early death.

UPDATE:

UPDATE (11/21/25): Ariana Grande tests positive for COVID after tumultuous ‘Wicked: For Good’ press tour.

Flashback to December of 2021: Jimmy Fallon, Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion release pro-booster ‘It Was A (Masked Christmas).’

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll