The Sweet Way Ariana Grande Honored Her Roots In Wicked

From being a chart-topping musician to a talented actor, there's nothing that Ariana Grande can't do. She has been a part of the entertainment industry since a very young age and has reached new heights in every field she has entered. Despite being so successful in her career, Grande remains grounded and respects her heritage. Although she has chosen to go by her popular name for years, the musician-actor decided to change that and honor her roots by using her full, real name in the movie "Wicked," which sees her playing the role of the fictional character Glinda The Good Witch.

The singer is credited as Ariana Grande-Butera in the film's end credits, which is a rare nod to her personal identity. Correspondingly, some audience members began sharing pictures of the end credits, where the singer-songwriter is billed with her real name. Even though she has never used her full name previously, Grande revealed that childhood memories inspired her decision to honor her roots. 

"I just feel like this experience was such a homecoming for me ...I came home to myself in a lot of ways, through what I learned from Glinda, from Elphaba," the singer noted in an interview with "The Streaming Service with Justin Hill." She added, "That was my name when I went to see the show when I was 10 years old, and it felt like a really lovely way of honoring that."

For those still wondering about the origin of the singer's full name, it is worth noting that Ariana Grande-Butera honors both her parents, Joan Grande and Ed Butera. While she shares a good relationship with her mother and father now, things were not as positive in the past. The singer had to face a lot of challenges due to her parents' strained relationship and even talked about their marriage in her song "Thank U, Next.". The ex-couple split when she was just 8 years old. Despite facing such an intense situation early in her childhood, Grande has never shied away from talking about the relationship she shared with her father after the separation.

In 2014, the "Wicked" star admitted that it was really hard for her not to be close to her father. As time passed, she came to accept the fact that it's possible to love and care for someone even without always liking them. "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. So much of me comes from my father, and for so long, I didn't like that about myself," she told Seventeen Magazine (via Yahoo News) in 2016. "I had to accept that it's okay not to get along with somebody and still love them." But she decided to reconcile with her father and form a beautiful relationship with him. In 2020, the award-winning artist walked the Grammys red carpet with both her parents and posed for the paparazzi. 

Moreover, she changed the lyrics of "Thank U, Next" to "I'll be thanking my dad/'Cause he's really awesome" at the 2020 Grammys.