Ariana Grande ‘forced’ her parents to be friends again 18 years after their separation

Speaking on the 'WTF with Marc Maron' podcast, Ariana shared that her parents are 'not together, but they're best friends'. "It took 18 years and it took me forcing it. I forced them to communicate again. I really did," said the singer, whose parents split when she was a child

Los Angeles: Singer-actor Ariana Grande says she helped her parents mend their relationship after they divorced.

She opened up about “forcing” her mom Joan Grande and dad Edward Butera to be friends again after they split on an episode of the ‘WTF with Marc Maron’ podcast, reports ‘people.com’. “They’re not together, but they’re best friends. It took 18 years and it took me forcing it. I forced them to communicate again. I really did,” Grande said.

---

Her parents split when she was a child, and the singer explained that she had finally taken a stand around her 24th birthday in 2017.

“I remember just kind of being at this pivotal point where I was just like, ‘You guys, I love you both so much. It’s been such a long time. Figure it out’,” she recalled. “Like hello, it’s been 18 years. I’m 80 (years old). Please get over it. And they did.”

The singer’s plea worked, and she says Joan, 67, and Ed, 66, are “best friends now”. “I can’t separate them. It’s the best thing in the whole world. I guess they just had like, some sort of beautiful conversation or realised that like, how much they love me is so much louder than whatever nonsense happened way back when,” she said.

“It really is beautiful, and if only they had the tools that I feel like we have now, this generation, with therapy and embracing that, maybe it could have happened sooner, but it was just the perfect thing… It makes me really happy,” added Ariana.

Grande’s parents often show their support for their daughter; in 2020, she brought them both to the Grammy Awards and they posed together on the red carpet as a happy family. In November, Joan and Ed also stepped out together for the Los Angeles premiere of ‘Wicked’, in which Grande is credited as Ariana Grande-Butera.

“I just feel like this experience was such a homecoming for me. That was my name when I went to see the show when I was 10 years old, and it felt like a really lovely way of honouring that. It felt really full circle,” she had said.