Ariana Grande sings on SNL and pokes fun of 'diva' image (2024)

Ariana Grande sang in her monologue as Bowen Yang joined her onstage dressed as her Wicked character Glinda while she guest-hosted Saturday Night Live.

The 31-year-old singer was making her second hosting appearance on the sketch show, where she has also been a musical guest four times.

For this weekend's episode, the guest host is legendary songstress Stevie Nicks, who shot to stardom in Fleetwood Macbefore embarking on a solo career.

In her rollicking opening segment, Ariana promised she would keep her monologue 'lowkey' - only for her to burst into song.

She broke out her expert impersonations of fellow pop stars like Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Gwen Stefani and even performed a big finish with a whole kick-line of chorus girls - all while insisting she is no 'diva.'

Ariana began her monologue by speaking rather than singing, plugging her upcoming two-part movie adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Wicked.

Ariana Grande sang in her monologue as Bowen Yang joined her onstage dressed as her Wicked character Glinda while she guest-hosted Saturday Night Live

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'I got to play Galinda in the Wicked movie, which is awesome because you know, I'm such a theater kid, and it's every theater kid's dream to either play Galinda or Elphaba,' she said, name-checking her and Cynthia Erivo's characters.

'Well, it's every theater kid’s dream to lose their virginity, but their second dream is of course to be in Wicked,' Ariana said to a laugh.

'The last time I hosted was in 2016, and we were right on the verge of electing our first female president, so I guess second time's a charm,' she added.

She then assured the audience she would 'keep it lowkey' and not make the show 'about me' only for a mic to appear in her hand and piano accompaniment to start.

'I'm gonna keep it low key tonight, promise I'm not gonna sing,’ she sang, before vowing in song not to do any of her impressions of her fellow pop stars.

She then launched into perfect impersonations of Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Gwen Stefani singing their hit songs.

Ariana also sang that she was 'not gonna talk about Wicked'- and then she nearly walked into Bowen Yang in full drag as her character Galinda, aka Glinda.

'Bowen, didn't anybody tell you? We cut the Wicked sketch,' said Ariana, to which Bowen said with barely contained chagrin: 'That's okay, I didn't want to do it anyway.’

The 31-year-old singer was making her second hosting appearance on the sketch show, where she has also been a musical guest four times

In her rollicking opening segment, Ariana promised she would keep her monologue 'lowkey' - only for her to burst into song

She broke out her expert impersonations of fellow pop stars like Britney Spears , Miley Cyrus and Celine Dion

Arianaeven performed a big finish with a whole kick-line of chorus girls - all while insisting she is no 'diva'

Ariana began her monologue by speaking rather than singing, plugging her upcoming two-part movie adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Wicked

Ariana also sang that she was 'not gonna talk about Wicked'- and then she nearly walked into Bowen Yang in full drag as her character Galinda, aka Glinda

'Bowen, didn't anybody tell you? We cut the Wicked sketch,' said Ariana, to which Bowen said with barely contained chagrin: 'That's okay, I didn't want to do it anyway’

She was joined by a phalanx of chorus girls doing a kick-line behind her as she sang that she was ‘really shy’ and belted: ‘If you’re looking for a diva, don’t look over here.’

In Ariana's first sketch of the night, she plays the maid of honor at the wedding of Kelsey (Chloe Fineman) and Matt (Michael Longfellow).

Ariana brings up group of bridesmaids played by Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, Sarah Sherman to sing a song about the bachelorette trip to Charleston.

One of them admits: ‘And we know we're not Matt's favorite because every time she's with us, she low key blacks out.’

Ariana even does an excellent impression of a bad singer as she plays the sister of the bride croaking her way through a song.

Much to the horror of the groom, the song turns about to be about Kelsey, the bride, becoming increasingly interested in a man called Domingo in Charleston.

At the first bar, the bridesmaids think he is gay, but by the second bar, they have decided he is 'maybe bi' because of his chemistry with Kelsey.

As Matt's concern grows, the bridesmaids sing about Kelsey taking off her ring, basking in a hot tub with Domingo and then going off with him alone to a hotel.

In Ariana's first sketch of the night, she plays the maid of honor at the wedding of Kelsey (Chloe Fineman) and Matt (Michael Longfellow)

Ariana brings up group of bridesmaids played by Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, Sarah Sherman to sing a song about the bachelorette trip to Charleston

Ariana even does an excellent impression of a bad singer as she plays the sister of the bride croaking her way through a song

Much to the horror of the groom, the song turns about to be about Kelsey, the bride, becoming increasingly interested in a man called Domingo in Charleston

‘Is the point of the song just that Kelsey cheated on me all weekend?’ Matt demands, and is told the 'point' is that the song is a spoof of Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso

Matt insists Kelsey give him answers 'whoever this Domingo guy is - and not for nothing, but the rhyme scheme has gone completely out the window'

Kelsey tries to assure Matt that Domingo is 'in the past,' at the precise moment that Domingo himself (Marcello Hernandez) appears at the wedding

'‘Came all this way, had to explain,' Domingo sings in a growly voice: 'Kelsey's a friend, she's like my sis, but we did hook up though'

'‘What? Why would you guys tell me this through song?’ Matt wails as his wife starts dancing with Domingo and chirps: 'I hope we can still be friends!'

‘Is the point of the song just that Kelsey cheated on me all weekend?’ Matt demands, and is told the 'point' is that the song is a spoof of Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso.

Matt insists Kelsey give him answers 'whoever this Domingo guy is - and not for nothing, but the rhyme scheme has gone completely out the window.’

Kelsey tries to assure Matt that Domingo is 'in the past,' at the precise moment that Domingo himself (Marcello Hernandez) appears at the wedding.

'‘Came all this way, had to explain,' Domingo sings in a growly voice: 'Kelsey's a friend, she's like my sis, but we did hook up though.'

'‘What? Why would you guys tell me this through song?’ Matt wails as his wife starts dancing with Domingo and chirps: 'I hope we can still be friends!'

In the next sketch, Ariana plays a schoolgirl singing sweetly about 'my best friend's house,' and all the smells and nostalgic items she encounters there.

She croons particularly fondly about her best friend’s father (Mikey Day), who loves crosswords and cooking and always has lots of snacks and cleaning products.

Her number is interrupted by the house being surrounded by caution tape as it emerges that the home belongs the ‘Crossword Killer’ - the best friend's father, a serial murderer the authorities have been trying to unmask for over a decade.

In the next sketch, Ariana plays a schoolgirl singing sweetly about 'my best friend's house,' and all the smells and nostalgic items she encounters there

She croons particularly fondly about her best friend’s father (Mikey Day), who loves crosswords and cooking and always has lots of snacks and cleaning products

Her number is interrupted by the house being surrounded by caution tape as it emerges that the home belongs the ‘Crossword Killer’ - the best friend's father

A newsreader says 'human remains have been discovered in nearly every room in the house,' amid footage of body parts being removed

Ariana, looking back, sings about the ‘red flags’ that she ‘missed’ - including the severed human hand that floated to the top of the stew her friend’s father was cooking

‘Yes the fridge was stuffed with food like I said, but it distracted me from the frozen human head,' Ariana sings in a perfect deadpan

A newsreader says 'human remains have been discovered in nearly every room in the house,' amid footage of body parts being removed and a clip of a police officer vomiting on the front lawn after seeing a particularly grisly sight in the building.

Ariana, looking back, sings about the ‘red flags’ that she ‘missed’ - including the severed human hand that floated to the top of the stew her friend’s father was cooking and the fact there were ‘drains in the living room.'

Even the VHS tapes kept in the house, which she initially thought were movies, turn out to have handwritten titles like ‘Census Lady Blonde 2009’ and ‘2 Trick-Or-Treaters Oct 2012’ - descriptions of his victims.

‘Yes the fridge was stuffed with food like I said, but it distracted me from the frozen human head,' Ariana sings in a perfect deadpan.

In the next sketch, a game night, Ariana plays Diane, the matriarch of a family that includes a gay son (Michael Longfellow) and his boyfriend (Bowen Yang).

Diane is initially very welcoming to her son’s 'incredible boyfriend' - until he wins at charades and triumphantly crows: ‘In yo’ face, Diane!’

‘Oh…well, that wasn’t necessary,’ says Diane, clearly ruffled by his impertinence.

He tries to backpedal that he was only ‘teasing,’ but Diane has fully soured on him, demanding: ‘You got a tiny pecker or something?’

In the next sketch, a game night, Ariana plays Diane, the matriarch of a family that includes a gay son (Michael Longfellow) and his boyfriend (Bowen Yang)

She taunts the boyfriend about the size of his manhood repeatedly, prompting him to leap to his feet in a fury and offer to ‘show’ her how well-endowed he is

The confrontation devolves into a full-on physical brawl when Diane says: ‘We play by street rules, b****,’ and cracks a bottle over Bowen’s character’s head

After the fight is over, Diane pulls herself to her feet and says, deeply impressed: ‘You did it,' adding: 'Finally, one of my son’s boyfriends stood up to me'

Diane then kisses her son's boyfriend on the mouth

Over her son's humiliated objections, she doubles down: ‘Well, you must be compensating for something, you poor sick loser.’

The boyfriend starts apologizing, the rest of the family tries to play peacemaker and Diane pretends to have moved on from the affront.

Bowen's character relaxes and tries to tease her again that she’s ‘going down’ in the next round - eliciting her retort that she will ‘shoot you point blank in the head.'

She upbraids him for ‘threatening a woman,’ and when he protests that he was not trying to threaten her, she sneers: ‘You couldn't if you tried. Not with that rinky drink pinky you got in between your legs.’

‘It is not rinky-dink! I’ve Googled what the average is!’ the boyfriend pleads.

Once the next clue comes up, Diane unleashes a long Freudian slip about a ‘poor, pathetic little gay guy’ - and when her son points out that he is gay as well, she counters that she ‘didn't mean it like that. I meant gay as in stupid and bad.’

‘Diane, what is your problem?’ asks Bowen’s character, to which she replies: ‘I don't have a problem. I've got love and a family.'

She taunts him about the size of his manhood again, prompting him to leap to his feet in a fury and offer to ‘show’ her how well-endowed he is.

In the next sketch, Ariana broke out her uncanny impression of Celine Dion - doing an ad for a sport very few people would associate her with

Celine dramatically intones: 'There is another sport whose timeless emotions ignite the bittersweet memories that live inside my soul - and in the octagon - UFC fighting;

She speaks in hushed, reverent tones about ‘the hush of the crowd as a 300-pound Bosnian vomits up his own teeth - this is the UFC'

She launches into a parody of Celine's song It's All Coming Back To Me Now, with the lyrics rejiggered to be about UFC

This gets her husband involved the fight, bellowing: ‘Don’t you dare show my wife your pecker!’ and the conflict escalates from there.

The confrontation devolves into a full-on physical brawl when Diane says: ‘We play by street rules, b****,’ and cracks a bottle over Bowen’s character’s head

After the fight is over, Diane pulls herself to her feet and says, deeply impressed: ‘You did it. Finally, one of my son’s boyfriends stood up to me.'

She explains: 'I need my son to have a man like you who will protect him because my son is so, so weak, and I don't have any respect for him.’

Diane then kisses her son's boyfriend on the mouth.

In the next sketch, Ariana broke out her uncanny impression of Celine Dion - doing an ad for a sport very few people would associate her with.

After extolling the virtues of football, Celine dramatically intones: 'There is another sport whose timeless emotions ignite the bittersweet memories that live inside my soul - and in the octagon. UFC fighting. Shall we go for it?'

She launches into a parody of Celine's song It's All Coming Back To Me Now, with the lyrics rejiggered to be about UFC.

The next sketch stars Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg as the Renaissance Italian parents of a boy called Antonio, whom they have turned into the first castrato

They ask Antonio to demonstrate and he begins to undo his trousers before his parents clarify that they meant ‘with a song'

Antonio whimpers out another verse of song, but an expression of terror and mortification remains plastered on his face

Antonio's parents prod him to sing the song he wrote about his castration - a parody of Twist And Shout that he is barely able to eke out as his memories flood back

'It's all coming back, all coming back to me now, there was breaking of bones and there were knees to the balls,' Ariana sings in a dead-on copy of Celine's voice.

She speaks in hushed, reverent tones about ‘the hush of the crowd as a 300-pound Bosnian vomits up his own teeth - this is the UFC.'

Celine belts out: 'When I hit you like this and you choke me like that, when you elbow me, it's all coming back to me...'

She then says, not in song: 'It's all coming back to me, but maybe not to them because of the concussions, no? That is the beauty of the UFC, the tension, the skill.'

In the next sketch, an Italian nobleman is beingregaled with entertainments by various subjects but is unimpressed.

However a couple - played by returning SNL alumni Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg - bring their son Antonio (Ariana) to present to him

Antonio is described as ‘shy’ by his parents, who explain that he would rather just ‘sing’ - which he doesin a whispery, squeaky falsetto.

'Well, what if I told you that any boy could sing like this? All we have to do is have him castrated,’ Antonio’s father offers.

The last sketch has Ariana and Chloe Fineman respectively playing Jennifer Coolidge and her reflection talking to each other in a Maybelline commercial

The premise of the commercial is Jennifer talking to the mirror while preparing for a date - and exhibiting the eccentricities of Jennifer’s characters

She and her reflection decide on ‘lemons’ as a 'conversation starter,' while the topic to avoid is ‘fish': ‘The band or the animal?’ ‘There’s an animal called fish?’

Chloe’s Jennifer sees the mirror is smudged, sprays it and opens it to reveal the 'real' Jennifer Coolidge - played by Dana Carvey

The parents explain that this is a new technique they have developed, in which parents ‘castrate your boy before puberty so his voice never drop.’

They ask Antonio to demonstrate and he begins to undo his trousers before his parents clarify that they meant ‘with a song.’

Antonio whimpers out another verse of song, but an expression of terror and mortification remains plastered on his face.

The noblemen ask how Antonio felt about the castration, but all the questions, either from the aristocrats or his parents, are met with traumatized silence by the child.

The parents take pains to explain that they are not monsters and ‘never cut off nothing,’ only for the father to add ominously: ‘It was just a twist.’

‘We just take the boy when he eight or nine year old and put him into a - come si dice - opium-induced coma,’ says Antonio's father.

‘And then we take his little gonad and have a twist,' the parents explain, adding that they continue until the genitals simply 'pop off.'

Antonio's father then reveals they put their son's ‘gonad’ in an ‘icebox in case we want to reverse the operation.’

Stevie delivered a stirring rendition of her timeless 1981 song Edge Of Seventeen, which was part of her debut solo album Bella Donna

‘You did?’ Antonio cheeps up, only for his hopes to be dashed.

His mother admits: ‘But the dog, he learn how to open up the icebox and make a big meal out of the gonad, and now the dog' - she used a low voice - 'he bark like this.'

Antonio's parents prod him to sing the song he wrote about his castration - a parody of Twist And Shout that he is barely able to eke out as his memories flood back.

The last sketch has Ariana and Chloe Fineman respectively playingJennifer Coolidge and her reflection talking to each other in a Maybelline commercial.

The premise of the commercial is Jennifer talking to the mirror while preparing for a date - and exhibiting the eccentricities of Jennifer’s characters.

Shealso performed her new single The Lighthouse, less than a month after she released the song to the delight of her worldwide fanbase

She and her reflection decide on ‘lemons’ as a 'conversation starter,' while the topic to avoid is ‘fish.’ ‘The band or the animal?’ ‘There’s an animal called fish?’

‘If you could meet anyone living or dead, who would it be?’ the reflection asks Jennifer, throwing out another conversation topic. ‘Living,' says Jennifer.

Chloe’s Jennifer sees the mirror is smudged, sprays it and opens it to reveal the 'real' Jennifer Coolidge - played by Dana Carvey.

Stevie made a triumphant return to Saturday Night Live, a whopping 41 years after she last served as a musical guest on the program.

She delivered a stirring rendition of her timeless 1981 song Edge Of Seventeen, which was part of her debut solo album Bella Donna.

Stevie also performed her new single The Lighthouse, less than a month after she released the song to the delight of her worldwide fanbase.

Ariana Grande sings on SNL and pokes fun of 'diva' image (2024)
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