Topics: Ariana Grande, Celebrity, Entertainment, Sex and Relationships, Social Media, TV And Film, Wicked, Cynthia Erivo
It's no secret that Wicked stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo have formed an intimate and close friendship while working on the hit movie.
The 32-year-old singer, who plays Glinda, and the 38-year-old star, who portrays Elphaba, have rarely been seen not glued to each other's side throughout the press tour, often holding hands on red carpets and during interviews.
Now, Ariana has already explained that she 'channels a lot of energy through her hands' and is 'always reaching for something' and this is why, however, some fans of the celebrity duo have taken the pair's closeness to mean they could be in an actual relationship.
The rumour, which began on the press tour for the first film last November, has resurfaced with the release of the second instalment, Wicked: For Good.
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And now, they've become the target of even more misinformation surrounding this claim as a fake post about them has gone viral on social media.
The fake post initially gained traction after being posted on Facebook and is a picture of Ariana and Cynthia, alongside a caption claiming they're in a 'non-demi-curious semi-binary relationship'.
In the caption, the person who created it even went as far as to pretend they'd interviewed Cynthia, pretending Cynthia said: "It means we are not actually a couple but we are curious about what that could mean and everything."
To break it down, as explained by Pink News, the term demigender is an umbrella term for nonbinary gender identities that have a partial connection to a certain gender, meanwhile semi-binary is a subcategory for genders that partially relate to a binary gender but also a non-binary gender, for example demigirl.
However, the post is entirely made up and came from a page which shares satirical content.
The issue with this post is that the way it was laid out and written made it seem like it had come from a real, genuine publication, prompting people to share it far and wide online.
This then led to other publications and social media pages picking up the quotes and before you know it, it was all over the internet.
The Facebook page's bio reads: "Where truth goes to die and sarcasm reigns supreme. Serving up satire, nonsense, and gloriously unreliable stories."
So essentially, it was meant to be a joke and everyone just missed that part.
As far as we know, Ariana is currently in a relationship with her other Wicked co-star, Ethan Slater, who plays the role of Boq.
Meanwhile, Cynthia identifies as queer and bisexual and is in a relationship with writer and comedian Lena Waithe.
The fake post comes after Ariana spoke out about her close friendship with Cynthia during a chat with Amy Poehler on her Good Hang podcast.
The singer opened up on exactly why she and Cynthia touch so often during their press tours.
Poehler said: "It’s really sweet how you touch each other. You like to touch in a nonsexual way, in a loving way of supporting each other.
"You like to hold each other’s hands and be there for each other. It’s very sweet. You like to do that with people. Am I wrong?"
To which Ariana confirmed: "I do, I do. I channel a lot of energy through my hands.
"And so I’m always holding a hand. I’m always, like, squeezing a something, as you’ve learned. I’m always reaching for something sometimes."
She added that she sometimes squeezes who she's with, explaining: "Yeah, I like to channel support and energy... I didn’t even notice that it was a thing about me until that thing happened."
