Ariana Grande reveals the real reason she's reverted to her birth name in Wicked's credits

Ariana Grande has revealed the surprising reason she is listed under her full name in the promotional material and credits for her upcoming movie Wicked.

The US pop star, 31, who was recently in Australia with her co-star boyfriend Ethan Slater to promote the movie , is credited in the film under her birth name Ariana Grande-Butera.

The singer told Hit Network she chose the credit as a means of 'honouring' her younger self, by using her full birth name rather than her shortened stage name.

'Technically, it's my little girl name. It's little Ari's name. This experience was such a homecoming for me,' Ariana began.

She added that by being credited under her birth name she felt like she was paying tribute to her beginnings.

'I feel like I came home to myself in a lot of ways in what I learned from [Wicked characters] Glinda, from Elphaba.

'That was my name when I was 10 years old and it felt like a really lovely way of honouring that. It felt really full circle and something I wanted to do.'

It was previously reported the reason behind the credit was because Ariana had recently reconnected with her estranged father Ed Butera.

The singer was born Ariana Grande-Butera on June 26, 1993, in Florida .

Her family moved from New York to the Sunshine State before her birth, but later her parents separated.

As a result of their family dynamic, she chose to use her mother's last name, Grande, professionally.

While there isn't a specific date recorded on which she formally changed her professional name, she simply started using 'Ariana Grande' primarily for her music and acting career somewhere around the late 2000s or early 2010s.

Eventually, the We Can't Be Friends singer and her father fell out of touch and became estranged by 2013, but in more recent years father and daughter have reconnected and appear to be on a much more positive path forward in their lives.

Ariana stars as Glinda the Good Witch in Jon M. Chu's highly anticipated musical fantasy film, based on the popular stage musical, while her boyfriend Ethan Slater, 32, plays a munchkin.

The pair met in December 2022 on the UK set of the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked.