Ariana Grande’s latest foray into politics may not be so “popular” with at least a portion of her fanbase.
The Wicked actress seemingly made her feelings on current events known when she reposted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) tweet calling for President Donald Trump to be impeached in the wake of his strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.
On Monday’s show Megyn was joined by Emily Jashinsky, host of MK Media’s After Party with Emily Jashinsky, to discuss Grande’s post and the long history of celeb’s getting political.
Grande’s Post
Just hours after Trump confirmed the success of the mission against Iran, Grande reshared a screenshot of the progressive congresswoman’s tweet about the bombing campaign in her Instagram Stories early Sunday.
“The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” AOC claimed on X. “He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”
The Grammy winner did not add any commentary of her own, but the post leaves little to interpretation and is not the first time she has shared her thoughts on Trump. After Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election loss, the pop star told her followers to “please be active and vocal every day toward making each other feel accepted and loved for our differences” because “it’s the only way we will be able to get through what could possibly be a very dark few years.”
Billboard reported Grande also took a swipe at Trump in the 2018 music video for her hit “Thank U, Next” by including a book titled “Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy,” which her mother confirmed on Twitter at the time was aimed at Trump.
Earlier this year, Grande expressed her dismay with Trump’s executive order recognizing male and female as the only sexes, resharing a statement from a trans equality group that promised to “protect” one another “no matter what comes.”
Celebrity Culture
Whether her fans or fans of hugely popular film adaptations of Wicked say “thank u, next” to the songstress remains to be seen, but Jashinsky said celebrities inserting themselves into the conversation surrounding politics or foreign entanglements is nothing new.
“We all remember – Zoomers don’t – what it was like in and around 2005 when public opinion on the Iraq War started to change, it was just a constant onslaught of celebrity armchair punditry about what is happening and the president,” she noted. “I feel like we have amnesia, kind of, culturally, about how ugly politics and culture was during that time of the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, and a lot of that was fueled by celebrities wading into these waters in really divisive ways that were also very, I think, offensive to everyday Americans.”
Case in point: The backlash the Dixie Chicks (now just The Chicks) faced after lead singer Natalie Maines told a London crowd during a stop on their world tour in March 2003 that they were ashamed of then-President George W. Bush and did not support the imminent invasion of Iraq.
“It was just infuriating to a lot of people who literally burned Dixie Chicks CDs,” Jashinsky said. “And I don’t think that stemmed exactly from a disagreement with the politics of what they said, as much as it was like, ‘How dare you trash talk the American president to people in the U.K.'”
Those who don’t remember the cultural tensions of that time, Jashinsky added, may soon be in for a rude awakening. “Some of the division that people sense in our politics today – it’s amusing, to some extent, to hear Zoomers be so exhausted and fatigued with it. Because, I mean, people remember what it was like in the mid-2000s and it was really, really ugly… [and] things could get really ugly culturally very soon, too.”
Megyn’s Message
Megyn said that regardless of what is to come, Grande should focus her attention elsewhere. “Ariana Grande, who, far as I know, has done nothing other than sing and dance – which she seems to be very good at – would like us to listen to her political opinions now,” she noted. “In particular, her constitutional opinions on whether [Trump has] gone too far.”
“I think that Ariana Grande needs to put more thought into how to add one half an ounce of fat back onto her body than she does thinking about President Trump being impeached,” Megyn continued. “Obviously, she’s in the middle of a crisis… This woman looks ill… She looks dangerously thin, and someone needs to do an intervention to help her.”
Given her history of politically charged commentary, it might be time for Grande to “break free” of the need to share her “positions” on politics. “I’m not saying this to be snarky. I genuinely think someone needs to help this woman. She’s obviously troubled, and I think weighing in on this is just her latest folly,” Megyn added. “She was caught on camera a couple years ago saying, ‘I hate Americans.’ Now, here she is talking about Trump needing to be impeached… I think Ariana Grande should work on her own well-being and keep her constitutional thoughts to herself.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Jashinsky by tuning in to episode 1,093 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.