Ariana Grande is saving her tears amid internet trolls blasting her voice change after a recent clip from her appearance on Penn Badgley’s Podcrushed show went viral online.
In the clip from the June episode, the Grammy winner’s voice appeared to fluctuate from a lower timbre to a higher-pitched tone mid-conversation.
The No Tears Left To Cry singer has faced major criticism in the past on social media over her changing voice, which she said she altered to play Glinda in the upcoming film Wicked and to preserve her “vocal health”.
During Tuesday’s episode of the Shut Up Evan podcast, Ariana defended her shifting tone, telling host Evan Ross Katz that voice changing is “a normal thing people do, especially if you have a large range”.
The chart-topping star went on to attribute “muscle memory” for her oscillating voice after training for years to play her Wicked character “every single day”.
“I did just spend a long time playing a character every single day,” she said. ”[I trained] my voice to do different things for a long time before leaving for London and before any of this. The voice is in the body, it’s an instrument and muscle memory is a real thing.”
Ariana then slammed the unfair double standards that female actors who change accents for movie roles often face in comparison to male actors.
“You see with male actors that after the fact, people are always like: ‘Oh, wow! How dedicated he is to his craft. What an amazing transformation! He’s a brilliant performer,’” she said.
“And if God forbid I sneeze like Glinda or make an intonation [like her], it’s just that I’m crazy or ‘someone should check on her.’”
She continued: “After I made that comment [about changing my vocal levels], I started thinking about the other ways in which this is normal, and not only normal but also: I had a job to do.”
Ariana wrapped up her response by admitting that “it’s a strange thing to be under such a microscope” amid the incessant judgment.
This isn’t the first time Ariana has shut down the internet’s ruckus over her voice.
In the comments section of one of the TikTok clips from her appearance on Podcrushed, the singer and actor addressed her vocal range.
“I intentionally change my vocal placement (high/low) often depending on how much singing I’m doing,” the singer commented under a clip in June from her interview that one user captioned, “The Voice Change??”
“I’ve always done this BYE,” Ariana added.