It's a good time to be a Ryan Murphy fan. Both The Shards and The Beauty recently wrapped up their first seasons, while Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story has debuted for those with a Netflix subscription. Plus all eyes are on the impending premiere of American Horror Story Season 13, which will feature plenty of returning faces reprising their iconic roles. Ariana Grande was originally going to appear as well, and Murphy just broke his silence on her scrapped role.
AHS 13's trailer showed off a ton of beloved characters from the show's history, with many of Ryan Murphy's frequent collaborators expected to play multiple roles. Ariana Grande originally had a role to play, but had to drop out. During an interview with THR at the premiere, Murphy addressed her absence by saying:
It was funny because at one point I was going to have the Scream Queens come on to this season, but Ariana was touring and I couldn’t make it work. But she was like, ‘I still want to do it! I just can’t be on tour.’ So I was like, ‘All right, let me think of it.'
Well, I'm intrigued. Scream Queens (which is streaming with a Hulu subscription) only ran for two seasons, but the campy slasher comedy was a memorable series. It was also one of Ariana Grande's first acting roles after becoming a global pop star, playing the ill-fated Chanel #2 for four episodes throughout Season 1. Ryan Murphy's comment seem to indicate that she would have played that role again in American Horror Story Season 13, rather than bringing a new character to life.
Over the past few years Grande has established herself as a bonafide movie star, earning an Oscar nomination for playing Glinda in Wicked, and also starring in the upcoming comedy Focker-In-Law. That's why I assumed she was going to play someone other than Chanel #2 in AHS. Later in the same interview, Murphy spoke more about why she was unable to join the fun of Season 13, offering:
I mean, it’s been what, 12 years since Glee went off the air? Sometimes it takes a while. But it was the tour which I knew. She warned me in advance that it was gonna be really hard to schedule, and the weekend we had to shoot it, she was touring, but I said, ‘OK, I’ll bump it down the road,’ so I haven’t given up. I love her.
It looks like Grande's Eternal Sunshine Tour ended up conflicting with the dates she needed to film AHS. Still, the TV mogul seems to want collaborate with her sometime in the future. Maybe that'll happen in a future season of the horror series if it continues past Season 13.
Perhaps it all worked out for the best, as Ariana Grande is taking a step away from the public eye after working pretty much non-stop for the past few years. Still, I would have loved to see her in AHS.
American Horror Story Season 13 airs new episodes Thursdays on FX as part of the 2026 TV schedule. As for Grande, Focker-In-Law will premiere in theaters on November 25th.
