Ariana Grande Gets Emotional When Asked About Using Her Full Name in ‘Wicked’ Credits

The “Wicked” star will be credited as Ariana Grande Butera in the film as a nod to her once-estranged father, Edward Butera.

Ariana Grande will be use her full government name when the credits roll in the Wicked film.

In an emotional interview with Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner, the 31-year-old singer and actress opened up about her decision to use her full name, Ariana Grande Butera, as a reflection of her reconnection with her father, Edward Butera, after years of estrangement.

“That was my name when I first saw Wicked [on Broadway],” Grande said through tears around the 2:48 mark in the video linked above. “Not to sound like a broken record, but I do feel like this role in this project helped me sort of come home to little Ari and maybe little pieces of her got lost along the way in this crazy industry.

And I am so grateful for the ways in which this experience led me back.”

The Eternal Sunshine singer also revealed that she had only texted her co-star Cynthia Erivo, 37, about the decision and that Wicked director Jon M. Chu, 45, sent her the credits in advance to surprise her dad.

“I surprised him, Jon was so generous. He sent me—before he was supposed to send me—sorry, Universal, cat’s out of the bag.

He sent me the credits because he knew that people were gonna start seeing it soon and he was scared someone was gonna talk about it before he got to see it,” Grande explained.

“So I pulled it up on my laptop and I recorded him secretly, and I told him I wanted to show him the typography of the credits because he’s a graphic designer—he loves that stuff.

Anyway, it was a big surprise and he cried. It was very emotional,” she continued.

As explained by ET’s Liz Calvario, Butera, a Florida-based graphic designer, split from Grande’s mother, Joan, when the singer was eight years old.

The divorce reportedly led to a strained relationship between father and daughter.”

In a 2014 interview with Seventeen, Grande described the estrangement, saying, “Falling out of touch with my dad. It’s private, but it happened last year. It took me so long to be okay with it.”

“The thing that got me there was embracing the fact that that I am made up of half my dad, and a lot of my traits come from him,” she added. “So much of me comes from my father, and for so long, I didn’t like that about myself.

I had to accept that it’s okay not to get along with somebody and still love them.”

Edward Butera, Joan Grande, Frankie Grande, and guests attend the Los Angeles premiere of Universal Pictures “Wicked”

It’s not clear how or when exactly the two patched things up, but two seemed to reconnect in 2018 for Christmas.

Two years later, Edward joined his daughter, along with mother Joan, on the red carpet of the 2020 Grammy Awards. They were also in attendance at the Los Angeles premiere of Wicked on Saturday alongside Frankie Grande and his husband Hale Grande.

Wicked Part One hits theaters on November 22.