When it came to her take on Glinda, Ariana Grande didn't want to stray too far from the original Broadway musical version of 'Wicked'.

Let’s, maybe, I don’t know, hip-hop it up a little bit. Ariana said, ‘Absolutely not, don’t do it. I want to be Glinda, not Ariana Grande playing Glinda,'” Schwartz tells The Times. In fact, Grande was so protective of Glinda she didn’t even want to add what became a show-stopping dance break finale to the number.

Wicked” composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz revealed in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that he pitched Ariana Grande on a different version of “Popular” for the film adaptation that she instantly turned down.

Meanwhile, fans have been in a frenzy over rumors that Grande was paid $15 million to star as Glinda the Good Witch in the two-part movie musical, while Erivo, 37, only got $1 million to play Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

In the immortal words of Glinda "it's all about popular!" Now, that Jon M. Chu's Wicked movie is out, we officially have Ariana Grande 's version of the song and fans are living for a change she makes in her take on the Broadway classic.

In a new Los Angeles Times oral history, Wicked composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz explains:

It’s safe to say Ariana Grande was born to play Glinda from Wicked, and it’s been her dream for years and years. Since she found out a Wicked film was being made in 2019, she was already in vocal lessons getting re-trained at a Broadway standard.