In recent years, Ariana Grande returned to acting in a big way with her Oscar-nominated role in the Wicked movies (streaming with a Peacock subscription). She also filmed the upcoming comedy Focker-In-Law, despite public scrutiny about her acting and her personal life. Now, Grande is stepping away from the public eye, but how does Robert De Niro feel about his co-star not being able to do press for their movie?
Ariana Grande has been open about her complicated relationship with fame, and things seemed to have reached a boiling point as a result of Wicked and her latest tour and album release. An alleged insider spoke to RadarOnline about how her break from public life is impacting press for Focker-In-Law, claiming:
Ariana’s situation has created some chaos around how Focker-in-Law will be promoted and marketed. She has a leading role and is the focus of the trailer that’s already playing in theaters. But she’s not available to promote the film.
One can assume that the original plan was to have the “Seven Rings” singer front and center during the promotional tour, alongside Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. Alas, that’s seemingly not the case anymore, so there’s likely a bunch of BTS changes happening to the schedule. But what do her co-stars think?
The same anonymous insider made some claims about how Robert De Niro allegedly feels about Grande stepping away from the promo tour. They claimed he “loved working with her” while filming Focker-In-Law, and that he just…
wants Ariana to be happy and healthy and for the world to know how funny she is in this movie.
That’s really heartening. If these comments are to be believed, then the Taxi Driver icon has no hard feelings about Ariana Grande protecting her mental health and excusing herself from the upcoming comedy’s press. Instead, De Niro wants the actress/pop star to take care of herself, and is seemingly excited for fans to see her performance in Focker-In-Law. I know I’m excited to see this pairing of actors on the big screen.
Grande spoke about how Focker-In-Law was more physically challenging than Wicked, and she looks like she’s really crushing it in the movie’s trailer. She worked hard on the comedy sequel, so I get why she might be stepping away from the press tour in order to protect her peace. I mean, she promoted the Wicked movies for basically two years straight, on top of its long shooting schedule. Add in the recording and release of her new album Petal, as well as her tour, and the 33-year-old multitalent has earned some much-needed rest. Luckily, it sounds like her co-stars are supportive.
Focker-In-Law will hit theaters on November 25th as part of the 2026 movie release list. We’ll just have to wait and see what shenanigans the rest of the cast gets into while promoting its release.
