Ariana Grande was joined onstage by her Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo in London last night (August 16).
- READ MORE: Ariana Grande live in London: brilliant business-as-usual before the singer takes a break from the spotlight
The pair performed ‘For Good’ the titular anthem from Wicked: For Good at The O2 along with ‘Get Happy’ and ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ on the second night of Grande’s 10 date residency at the venue on her ‘Eternal Sunshine’ tour. You can view footage below.
The latter tracks were first performed by the duo during a Wicked television special that aired last November, according to Variety. It is a homage to a harmonically entwined mashup that Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand created for a TV appearance in the 1960s.
It comes after the pop star’s representatives confirmed earlier this month that she would be “taking a step back from visibility” following her current ‘Eternal Sunshine’ tour.
Ariana Grande brings out Cynthia Erivo to perform ‘For Good’ at her Eternal Sunshine tour in London. pic.twitter.com/rTQs352ruE
— Pop Base (@PopBase) August 16, 2026
She also withdrew from the upcoming West End revival of Sunday In The Park With George, in which she had been due to appear alongside her Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey. It would have been her West End debut at London’s Barbican Centre, starting next summer.
During the first of her three shows at Chicago’s United Center earlier this month, Grande took a moment to “clear the air about a few things”.
She said: “I heard that my fans were worried that negativity was ruining things for me, but I just have to say that could not be more the far opposite. This is not what that is. And I just want to be very, very clear: multiple things can be true at the same time.
“Boundaries need to be set, human beings can need a break sometimes and also, this can be and will continue to be the greatest experience of my professional and creative life.”
Elaborating on her reasons for speaking out, Grande shared: “I needed to get out here and differentiate that from my truth for all of you because I love you and this tour has been the most healing, beautiful, corrective, magnificent, special experience of my life.”
The decision came after renewed public commentary surrounding Grande’s body and appearance, which intensified online after she recently released the video for ‘Petal‘, the title track from her new album.
Reviewing the first night at The O2, NME awarded the show five stars, describing it as “brilliant business-as-usual before the singer takes a break from the spotlight”.
It added: “For much of the two-hour runtime, Grande’s setlist nimbly mixes gold-plated bops (2016’s dance-pop starburst ‘Into You’; 2019’s sleek R&B gem ‘Thank U, Next’) with vibey and sometimes less immediate deep cuts from ‘Eternal Sunshine’ and her latest album ‘Petal’, which dropped two weeks ago. The deftness of this blend really becomes apparent in the final section, when her new album’s clattering title track segues into the cathartic crowd-pleaser ‘We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)’. Grande’s overall message tonight seems to fall somewhere between ‘Thank U, Next’ and ‘Yes, And?’. She’s doing business as usual until she boxes up her stage costumes in September.”
Elsewhere, Jeff Goldblum recently spoke to NME about working with “those wonderful, wonderful ladies from Wicked” and how they featured on his recent album ‘Night Blooms’.
“While we were on the set, we got to singing and they said, ‘Yes, we want to be on the album’,” Goldblum said working with the pair as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. “But before we shot a single frame of film, we got together and had this lovely Thanksgiving dinner with the wonderful Jon M. Chu [director], his family and some of the crew. There was a piano there, I sat down and started playing. They love music and they’re so masterfully gifted and accomplished that I was floating on air singing with them.
“Then on set, I was trying to do my job but couldn’t help but sing every song I knew in between takes. They knew every jazz standard and every Broadway show tune. We were singing and talking about what we liked, but I didn’t have any agenda about them playing with me.”
He added: “I started to sing this one song ‘I Don’t Know Why (I Just Do)’, and Ariana said, ‘How are you singing that song? My grandfather used to sing that to me all the time’. I told them about our band and she said she’d love to record it. With Cynthia too, we found this song ‘We’ll Meet Again’ by Vera Lynn, and that’s how it happened.”
