A Reporter Interrupted Jessica Williams’s Interview For Ariana Grande — And Viewers Are Mad

The Shrinking star was speaking with E! News correspondent Justin Sylvester when Justin suddenly spotted Ariana Grande walking up on the red carpet.

Turning away from Jessica, Justin said, “You guys, Ariana Grande is coming right up right now!” Jessica laughed awkwardly and appeared to try to play along, saying, “She’s coming up!”

“Ariana, how are you, honey?” Justin added, as Jessica drifted aside. But Ariana, seemingly noticing what had just happened, didn’t immediately engage. Instead, she stopped to acknowledge Jessica first.

“You look so stunning, congratulations!” Ariana told her. “You’re amazing.”

Jessica thanked Ariana and appeared to reassure her, seemingly saying, “It’s OK,” as she started to walk away. Ariana then leaned in for a goodbye hug, which Jessica accepted, replying, “Of course.”

“That was disrespectful,” one Reddit user wrote. “Jessica deserved the same attention, period.”

Another added, “RUUUUUUDE! Even Ariana was so mortified.”

“Ariana smoothed that over really well,” one person said. “I love that Ariana basically ignored him for a hot minute to interact with Jessica and compliment her before she gave him the time of the day. It was subtle, but you can see it was done consciously,” another added.

“Say what you will about Ariana, but she handled this gracefully,” someone else wrote, while another commenter said her hug “said alot.”