The very first time that Ariana Grande encountered the phenomenon that is Wicked was back in 2003, when she and her grandmother, Marjorie Grande — affectionately known as “Nonna” — went to watch the original stage show.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you’re probably aware of the fact that Ariana plays Glinda in the movie adaptation of the show, which was released last week.
And in a beautiful full circle moment, the star revealed on Monday that she had flown back to her home city of Boca Raton, Florida, for just one day so that she could watch the film with Nonna at the movie theater she grew up going to as a child.
Tagging Ethan and Frankie in the post, Ari wrote: “flew to boca for a day to watch with Nonna at the movie theater i grew up going to every weekend, Cinemark 20 in Boca.”
She also posted a video of Nonna looking overwhelmed with emotion and pride while watching Ariana’s standout performance of “Popular.”
And the whole thing has fans feeling pretty emotional — especially after it was pointed out that Nonna is actually old enough to remember when the original Wizard of Oz was released back in 1939.
A tweet that has been liked more than 220k times echoes: “Ariana Grande’s granny was born in 1925. She would have been 14 when the Wizard of Oz came out. It’s truly mind-blowing to imagine living through that fanfare as a teenager not knowing almost 100 years later your own granddaughter would be starring in a Wizard of Oz movie.”
Welp. I don’t know about you, but this has got me right in the feels — let me know your thoughts in the comments!