After reimagining Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind alongside Emmy winner Evan Peters for her “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” visual, could Ariana Grande be gearing up to feature another beloved television actor in her next music video?
On Monday (May 27), Grande teased an upcoming visual for “The Boy Is Mine,” the next single from her Billboard 200-topping Eternal Sunshine LP, and in the days since, she’s continued to drop cryptic hints and teasers as fans await the clip’s June 7 arrival.
Wednesday (May 29) brought another teaser from Grande’s official Instagram Story. The Wicked star posted a mysterious picture of what appears to be the ingredients for a love potion with a partially obscured hand-drawn portrait. Grande did not caption the photo, but she did add a countdown titled “The Boy Is Mine” that ends on June 7. While the portrait isn’t the clearest, some fans are taking the luscious curls as a sign that You actor Penn Badgley will star as Grande’s love interest in the upcoming video, which will be directed by Christian Breslauer.
Should Badgley star in Grande’s upcoming clip, he would follow Peters, Charles Melton (“Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored”) and Matt Bennett (“One Last Time”) as the latest actor to play opposite the “Yes, And?” singer in one of her music videos.
If Badgley does make an appearance in “The Boy Is Mine,” he would be the second consecutive Eternal Sunshine music video love interest to have recently played a murderous character on a television show. Peters won his first Emmy for his performance in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and Badgley, of course, plays the stalkerish serial killer Joe Goldberg in You. (And Grande did star in the campy horror-comedy Scream Queens back in 2015!)
As fans await confirmation of Grande’s “Boy Is Mine” co-star, the Grammy winner is enjoying the sustained success of Eternal Sunshine — “We Can’t Be Friends” recently became her 10th chart-topper on Pop Airplay — as she gears up for the release of the first part of the long-awaited Wicked movie musical, in which she will star as Glinda the Good Witch opposite Cynthia Erivo‘s Elphaba.
See some of the reactions and fan theories about Grande’s highly anticipated “The Boy Is Mine” music video below.
