There are few icons as affixed to the horror genre as Elvira. She’s up there with staples like Jamie Lee Curtis and Robert Englund as one of the most universally-beloved horror icons out there, and she’s occupied that space since the early ’80s.
New faces have joined her over the years, but everyone — horror fan or not — knows Elvira. Even if you’re not well-familiar with her work, you’d recognize her from a mile away, which makes a long-ago interaction with a Wicked star all the more criminal.
Cynthia Erivo is set to portray the infamous Wicked Witch of the West in Universal Pictures’ reimagining of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, but it seems she stole the part out from under someone far more suited to the role. Ariana Grande, tapped to play the Good Witch Glinda in the film adaptation, may just need to ditch the “good” part of her title, now that news is swirling.
In a recent appearance, Cassandra Peterson — the one and only Elvira — was chatting with fans when she dished the deets on a jaw-droppingly rude encounter she had with the 31-year-old star. Grande’s team reportedly requested several dozen tickets — for free, no less — to the horror icon’s show. When Grande and her posse waltzed in, Elvira acquiesced to requests to pose for photos and sign autographs for each and every one of them, like the queen she is.
When she’d polished off all of Grande’s “friends and relatives”-related favors, however, things took a turn. Elvira asked Grande if the two of them could take a photo together. And what does this young star, who just asked for free tickets, the VIP treatment, and both photos and autographs for two dozen people, do? She refuses.
“No, I don’t really do that,” the Wicked star reportedly said. As if that wasn’t enough, she then ditched the theater before Elvira’s show began, leaving the horde of strangers she forced into the audience behind to enjoy the show.
It’s unimaginably rude behavior, but it really didn’t come as a surprise to many. After all, it’s far from the most obnoxious thing Grande has done. The star has earned a reputation, after years in the spotlight, and it’s not a great one. She’s been broadly accused of Black-fishing and Asian-fishing, as she adjusts her makeup, style, and aesthetic to appropriate various cultures other than her own, and her apologies have never sat well with her accusers.
Then there’s the donut incident, which occurred back in 2015. The pop star, then still on her rise, was caught on CCTV footage entering a donut store in Los Angeles and spoiling the selection for everyone when she made the disgusting decision to lick the offered products. She was promptly called out for this, and several apologies followed, but it showed fans the often-questionable behavior that seems to be a norm for Grande.
Her atrocious treatment of Elvira only underpins this perception further. Grande’s wispy voice and demure demeanor may suit Glinda best, but her real-life treatment of other people is far more in line with proper villains, like Madame Morrible or The Wizard himself.
Grande did speak out not long after Elvira’s story circulated, but many criticized the star for her supposedly “mean girl behavior.” She issued a half-hearted apology to the horror icon, and pointed to recent trauma associated with the 2017 attack on her Manchester show as the culprit behind her behavior — a reasonable excuse. The star then somewhat dampened the impact of her apology with a line about her mother’s opinion of Elvira, noting that “she might have different feelings” due to Elvira’s decision to call Grande out. Quite a few people found the response to be lacking, but when you’re as big a star as Grande, even widespread backlash won’t slow you down much.