Ariana Grande is officially a brunette again, and her fans, to quote her Wicked character, “couldn’t be happier.”
The 32-year-old singer shared her new look in an Instagram post on October 29, which racked up well over a million likes in an hour. And while the caption is a nod to Glinda (“It’s good to see me, isn’t it?”), the sentiment as well as her hair transformation seem to reference the end of her Wicked era.
Grande dyed her hair honey blonde after being cast as Glinda in the massive movie musical. “As soon as Ariana came in, she wanted to go blonde, which was a great idea because it gave her the feeling every day of being Glinda,” hair and makeup department lead Frances Hannon told Glamour in an exclusive breakdown of Wicked’s approach to beauty.
According to Hannon, going blonde in real life helped Grande fully embody her character, even though she wore a blonde wig for filming: “So for all the dance rehearsals and everything she had to do, she went in blonde herself.… She wanted to feel like she was bringing Glinda into everything,” she said. “The visual of the blonde, no different from [Elphaba’s] green, was very important to her.”
Grande has also embraced her light hair in her life and career outside the Wicked universe for the past three years: It graced the cover of her 2024 studio album, Eternal Sunshine, and has accompanied her to every red carpet, from the Grammys to the Met Gala. But with Wicked: For Good, the conclusion of the Oscar-winning Broadway adaptation, premiering on November 21, 2025, she’s teased a return to her roots in more ways than one.
