Ariana Grande might not be singing “thank u next” to these friends! The pop star jokingly thanked some cosmetic procedures during a recent acceptance speech at the 2025 Palm Springs International Film Festival.
“You don’t know how much it means to me,” Ariana, 31, told the crowd while accepting the Rising Star award at the festival on January 3. “I’ve been performing since I was a child, so I never thought at the age of 31 I would be hearing the words ‘rising star’ again, so I wanted to start by thanking my two friends – Botox and Juvéderm.”
She continued, “I thought I’d be hearing ‘slightly withering star’ or ‘drooping star’ by now so thank you.”
The “7 Rings” singer went on to thank her “incredible fearless leader, Jon Chu,” who directed Wicked, before joking about her “friends”
“I learned early on that laughter was one of our greatest escapes, and I remember the infectious impact it had, not only on the people in my life, but how it fed me in return,” Ariana continued, “Over the past 10 years, when I was solely focused on music, I really missed that feeling, so it really does feel like the beginning of a new chapter. Though Glinda the Good is full of frivolous humor and witty punchlines, comedy is just another way of telling the truth. She has an innate ability to make light out of darkness and bring levity wherever she goes, even when there’s pain.”
The Scream Queens alum added that she was “so grateful to have lived in” the role of Glinda and said that had “learned so much from her over these last three years.”
After she accepted the award, Ariana chatted with Entertainment Tonight backstage and clarified that she hadn’t had any cosmetic procedures lately and was “still clean” but said that when she started “going again,” she would let people know.
The “Bang Bang” artist had heartfelt reasons behind wanting to make sure people knew she was joking about getting Botox and Juvéderm injections.
“I really want to be transparent,” Ariana told the outlet. “As a beauty founder, as the founder of R.E.M. Beauty, I think it’s important to have transparency, but I love it and I support it.”
During a September 2023 interview with Vogue, Ariana admitted that she used to have a “ton” of lip filler and Botox, but stopped getting the cosmetic procedure done in 2018. She confessed that eventually it just “felt like too much.”
“Being exposed to so many voices at a young age, and especially when people have things to say about your appearance at a young age, it’s really hard to know what’s worth hearing or not,” the former Sam & Cat star explained at the time. “When you’re 17, you don’t really know that yet. Over the years, I used makeup as a disguise or something to hide behind with more and more hair and more, thicker eyeliner — that can be so beautiful at times and I still do have love for it and appreciation for it.”
Ariana added, “But I think as I get older, I don’t love that being the intention behind it anymore.”
