Ariana Grande has found her next leading man.
The singer confirmed on the Thursday, June 6, episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that Penn Badgley will star in the music video for her next single, “The Boy Is Mine,” which premieres on Friday, June 7.
“The video stars Penn Badgley, who I’ve been a fan of my entire life,” she gushed to host Jimmy Fallon. “It was so amazing to work with him. I’m such a fan. It was so fun.”
As well as starring the Gossip Girl and You star, Grande, 30, said the video will feature other surprise cameos. “There are a couple of little things,” she teased.
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Grande also spoke about the process of making her new album, Eternal Sunshine, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in March.
The “Yes, And?” singer said she didn’t think she would release new music until after the release of her upcoming movie, Wicked, this Thanksgiving, but ended up having some downtime to record during the SAG-AFTRA strike last summer.
“When the strike happened, I went home to see my family, of course — Nonna, my dad, my family,” she said. “After that, I booked a week in the studio and I asked the brilliant Max Martin if he wanted to come be with me. We had this week in the studio, it was just the two of us, and by the end of the week, we had five songs that are on this album.”
“He was like, ‘Just keep going and I’ll come back in a month,’ and it just came out that way,” Grande said.
Grande’s album sparked speculation among fans that some lyrics may be about her divorce from her ex-husband, Dalton Gomez, and her subsequent relationship with Wicked costar, Ethan Slater.
“Ariana thinks these songs will provide a lot of insight for her fans,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in March. “[It’s] her side of the story regarding Dalton and Ethan.”
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Us confirmed in July 2023 that Grande had separated from Gomez, her husband of two years. It was then reported that she was dating Slater, who filed for divorce from his wife, Lilly Jay, the same month.
In February, Grande addressed negativity about her relationship with Slater in an interview on the “Zach Sang Show.”
“I feel like we don’t need to go into any specifics, but, of course, there’s like an insatiable frustration, inexplicable, hellish feeling with watching people, misunderstand the people you love and you and anything,” she said.
