Ariana Grande has responded to reports of a deleted scene from Wicked featuring Jonathan Bailey and Ethan Slater “ripping their shirts off”.
Last month, supporting cast member Bowen Yang made headlines when he claimed that several scenes were shot and ultimately not used, which intended to show how close the central characters had grown as friends.
“There was one moment [...] of them hanging out, where it’s Boq and Fiyero, Jonathan Bailey and Ethan Slater, ripping their shirts off,” the SNL comic recalled.
“And so you were supposed to see Jonathan Bailey in his full shirtless glory, like flexing. And then Boq, in the story of the movie, being insecure, and wanting to look hot too, [takes] his shirt off. But then it’s like, ‘wait, Ethan’s got a great body’...”
With Wicked’s big stars currently doing the rounds in the lead-up to awards season, the group have been discussing a variety of deleted scenes that never made it into the finished film in the past week.
But speaking at the National Board Of Review Awards this week, there was only question on Entertainment Tonight’s mind: “When are we going to get that deleted scene of the cast in the field, with a shirtless Jonathan Bailey?”
“I can’t speak for Jon [M Chu, Wicked’s director], but all I can say is, you never know,” Ariana – who just happens to be dating Ethan Slater, also featured in the scene – insisted. “There’s still a whole other movie.”
Jon also agreed that the scene could still surface in the Wicked sequel, admitting that people are “harassing” him about the deleted sequence.
Both Ariana and her co-star Cynthia Erivo are currently frontrunners to win Oscars for their performances in Wicked later this year.
They both landed nominations at the Golden Globes, which took place over the weekend, but ultimately lost out on the night to Emilia Pérez’s Zoe Saldaña and The Substance’s Demi Moore.