Ariana Grande has officially departed the land of Oz. After a years-long press cycle for Wicked and Wicked: For Good, the actress and singer is moving on to new projects. That includes both an upcoming comedy and a new album — meaning that fans of either side of Grande’s dual career path will get their fill.
The “We Can’t Be Friends” songstress, who got her start as a teen actress on Nickelodeon series Victorious and its spin-off Sam & Cat before shifting her focus to music, has previously spoken about going down a new road in her career. In a November 2024 episode of Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’s podcast Las Culturistas, Grande said, “I’m always going to make music. I’m always going to go on stage. I’m always going to do pop stuff, I pinky promise, but I don’t think doing it at the rate that I’ve been doing for the past 10 years is where I see the next 10 years.”
She continued, “I think I love acting; I love musical theater. Reconnecting with this part of myself. … I love comedy, and it heals me to do that — finding roles to use these parts of myself.”
So — what is Grande doing in her post-Glinda world? Here’s everything on deck.
She’s releasing a new album
While Grande may be more than a singer, the three-time Grammy winner is still releasing new music. In April, she announced her upcoming album Petal, set to release July 31.
The news came after Grande posted a video compilation to Instagram on April 18 featuring herself in the recording studio. In the video, she described what many fans now believe was a tease to the future Petal: “Something that is full of life and growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging,” the star said.
Grande performs at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2025.
(Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty Images)
She’s heading out on tour
Grande’s new album is set to release in the middle of her tour for her seventh studio album Eternal Sunshine. The tour kicks off in Oakland on June 6 and concludes after a run in London in September.
Grande’s album Eternal Sunshine, which highlights themes like moving on following a breakup, dropped in March 2024. The tour of the same name will be her first concert tour since 2019’s Sweetener World Tour. That venture culminated in a Netflix concert film, Ariana Grande: Excuse Me, I Love You, in 2020.
She’s starring in a new Ben Stiller comedy
Grande, who has been praised in recent years for her hilarious appearances on Saturday Night Live, is taking on broad comedy with Focker-in-Law, the latest film in the Meet the Parents franchise. She plays Olivia, a former FBI hostage negotiator and the future daughter-in-law of Ben Stiller’s character Greg Focker.
At a recent panel at CinemaCon 2026, Grande’s co-star Robert De Niro — who plays Jack, Greg’s father-in-law and a former CIA operative — said that Grande was “probably the single most talented screen partner I’ve ever been lucky enough to share the screen with.”
Robert De Niro and Ariana Grande in “Focker-In-Law”
(Atsushi Nishijima/Universal Pictures/Everett Collection)
Stiller previously praised Grande in an interview on The View in October 2025. “She’s amazing,” he said. “What a brilliant comedic actress, and just an amazing person.”
The film hits theaters Nov. 25.
She’ll appear on American Horror Story
Grande, who previously appeared in the Ryan Murphy slasher comedy series Scream Queens in 2015 as ill-fated sorority girl Chanel #2, has joined the cast of American Horror Story’s 13th season. While few details of the anthology series have been revealed — including what the theme will be — Grande will reunite with Scream Queens costar Billie Lourd as well as fan-favorite AHS stars like Evan Peters and Jessica Lange.
She’s heading to the West End
Grande meant it when she said she wasn’t walking away from musical theater. In the summer of 2027, Grande will team up with her Wicked costar Jonathan Bailey for a revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park With George on London’s West End.
Tickets for the production, held at the Barbican performing arts center, will go on sale more than a year ahead of the show, in spring 2026.
Grande previously appeared in the Broadway show 13 in 2008. Speaking to Nicole Kidman for Interview magazine in November 2025, she said of the experience, “I had a few little lines, and it was the most incredible training. And to sing songs written by Jason Robert Brown — it’s so beautiful and so challenging. I feel like that’s where I developed stamina. But I would love to be on stage again.”
She’ll appear in an animated movie
Grande will also star in an upcoming kids film: an animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, which is set to hit theaters in 2028, per Deadline. The movie reunites Grande with her Wicked director Jon M. Chu, who will helm the project with codirector Jill Culton.
The movie, which also stars Josh Gad, will give Grande a chance to indulge her passion for musical theater. It features original songs by songwriting and composing duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the team behind Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen.
