Ariana Grande fans 'scared' after seeing lookalike's new appearance

Internet personality Paige Niemann has gone viral again this week, for 'frightening' hordes of Ariana Grande fans.

For those unfamiliar with the controversial TikTok star, 21, she is infamous across the globe for being the Wicked actress' online doppelgänger - whether Ariana likes it or not.

Claiming she'd first been compared to the Disney Channel alum as a 10-year-old, Niemann has spent the last eight years churning out both pictures and videos on social media, purposefully aimed at recreating some of Ariana's signature looks.

In 2017, for example, she purchased a red wig and shared clips appearing to emulate the 'Side to Side' singer's Victorious character 'Cat Valentine', before transitioning to Ariana's best-loved brunette phrase, during which she often wore a lengthy ponytail and donned dramatic winged eyeliner.

Earlier this year, she shocked onlookers after sporting a full 'Glinda the Good' costume and performing her own rendition of 'What Is This Feeling?' from Ariana's latest magical musical.

Despite Niemann's impersonating schtick garnering her over 10 million followers on TikTok, in 2022, she faced mass backlash from fans of the 'Thank U Next' hitmaker, after she joined the adult subscription service OnlyFans - vowing to share 'exclusive content that you wouldn't normally see from me'.

Given that she hadn't received permission from Ariana to do so, fans of the actress subsequently slammed the online star as 'weird', 'desperate' and 'creepy' for taking her resemblance to such an extreme.

These damning accusations were also thrown around this week, after Niemann quickly changed up her look again to keep up with Ariana's.

After sporting golden locks for over a year now in a bid to promote Wicked ahead of the release of the film's second half next month, Ariana made the decision on Wednesday (29 Oct) to transition back to brunette.

And, unsurprisingly, just hours later, Niemann teased making the exact same move.

Taking to Instagram, the social media star shared a computer-edited selfie, in which she appeared to have changed the colour of her hair.

Niemann captioned the snap: "ugh the brown looks so good."

Hours later, a flood of fans had taken to the comments of her recent post, with one hitting out: "Stop trying to be Ariana grande when u are nothing but obsessed with her." Another begged: "Girl u need serious help."

"Did you just really dye your hair brown again after ariana did it? crazy…" another slammed Niemann.

A fourth added: "Hasn’t even been that long since Ariana went brown and now Paige is already coping again."

"Obsessed much?" another questioned. "No way you’re brunette right after Ariana revealed she was brunette."

Though the real-life singer, 32, is yet to address Niemann's latest antics, Ariana reportedly responded to a fan theory about her in 2019.

According to Buzzfeed, she told the user: "@knnewagb i just wonder whyyyy the cat voice / dialogue. i am sure she is the sweetest sweet sweetheart forreal !! but it’s definitley bizarre seeing people blend the two worlds lmao."

The publication went on to allege that on another occasion, Ariana shared a now-deleted video of another internet user discussing the concept of impersonation online.

In the video, filmmaker Jordan Firstman could be seen explaining: "What if we, like, we took a moment, like a small clip from a movie or a TV show — something that, like, an artist really poured their soul into and it, like, it just took them years to make, and it was an uphill battle the entire time — what if we took a moment from that and we kind of, like, recontextualised it?

"Like, does that make sense? And we put a completely arbitrary meaning onto that thing that the artist loves so much? Kind of, like, degrading its entire value? I just think that could be, like, a fun, bitchy thing to do. I'm so bored... I just kind of wanna ruin someone's life today."

Apparently, Ariana re-shared the clip at the time, asking in her own caption: "Can this please also double as your impression of the pony tail TikTok girls who think doing the Cat Valentine voice and that wearing winged eyeliner and a sweatshirt is doing a good impersonation of me...

"Cause this is really how it feels."

She was also asked by Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo during a Variety interview - whilst hooked up to a lie detector - whether she'd 'ever confronted' anyone who impersonated her.

"No," Ariana replied, before being asked if she 'wanted to'. "Yes," she admitted. "In a fun way."