Ariana Grande Deserves an Award for Channeling Her Mother in SNL's "Charades with Mom"
The 2025 Academy Award nominee recounted the real incident that inspired her Season 50 sketch with Wicked co-star Bowen Yang.
Anyone who's familiar with Ariana Grande's talent for uncanny impressions knows the singer and actress truly knows how to transform. And Grande, who earned a 2025 Best Supporting Actress nomination for portraying Glinda in Wicked, showed us a side we'd never seen before in a sketch from her Season 50 episode, "Charades with Mom." The inspiration? Her own mother, Joan Grande.
In the sketch, a man (Michael Longfellow) invites his boyfriend (SNL cast member and Grande's Wicked co-star, Bowen Yang) to family game night with his parents (Grande and Andrew Dismukes). It's all fun and (literal) games until a teasing remark from Yang's character sets off mom Diane's sharply-competitive streak.
"In your face, Diane," Yang's character jokes after a win.
"Oh, well that wasn't necessary," Diane says, Grande's micro-expressions signaling a major vibe shift.
"You got a tiny pecker or something?" Grande's Diane asks, amid her family's pleas to dial it back. "Well, you must be compensating for something, you poor, sick loser."
Try as she might, Diane can't keep her razor tongue at bay when the game heats up. When her husband points at Yang's character during a charades round as a clue, she says in rapid-fire, "Pathetic! Fat! Bad! Evil! No nuts! Poor ugly short guy!"
RELATED: Mike Myers Unveiled His Elon Musk Impression in SNL's Cold Open: Watch
"Diane, what is your problem?!" Yang asks, shocked. Diane rises to her feet.
"I don't have a problem," she tells him with menace. "I've got love and a family. What have you got?" Her bottle-smash to his head is far from the end of their passionate face-off.
Ariana Grande's "Charades with Mom" sketch is based on a real incident with her mother, Joan Grande
"Charades with Mom" was written by Yang and Grande with Please Don't Destroy's Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy. When Yang first shared the sketch to Instagram on October 13, 2024, he captioned it, "based on true Joan Grande events."
"I'm so thankful we actually got to do this...I'm so happy," Grande commented, adding, "and yes, based on true events. We love you so much Joan Grande."
During a November 2024 episode of Las Culturistas, Yang's podcast with actor and comedian Matt Rogers, Grande elaborated on the incident that moved her to pitch the sketch.
“It was Labor Day weekend and Hale — my brother-in-law Hale’s family — was visiting,” Grande recounted (Hale and Ariana Grande's brother, Frankie Grande, wed in 2022). “We had a lovely, fun game day. It was so fun and funny and sweet. And my mom is, by the way, the most generous, kindest, giving person in the entire world. She is the hostess with the mostest.”
But she is competitive, "and fiercely protective of her children,” Grande continued. “So even if we’re playing charades and whatever, you don’t f— around.”
“We’re playing charades and Hale’s brother, my brother-in-law’s brother … was like, ‘Haha, we’re winning’ vibes. That was the extent of it, he was like, ‘Woo-hoo! We’re ahead,'" she said. "And my mom goes, ‘Tiny-d--k syndrome, huh?’”
RELATED: Here's When You Can Stream Wicked
“And I was like, ‘Mommy, wait, that’s not funny,’" Grande continued. "I was like, ‘Mom, that’s intense and harmful. That’s so intense!'" Except it was funny, and the "We Can't Be Friends" singer "excused myself immediately to send a voice note to Bowen," knowing that inspiration had struck.
“We all were laughing," she added. "But [Joan Grande] was like, ‘Well, that’s a sign of what that is.’ And I was like, ‘Mommy! This is insane!’ And then I started doing it as a bit for Jesse, Hale’s other brother, and he was crying tears and it lasted the whole day. So I was like, ‘Bowen, we have to do something with this, please. It’s just so silly.'”
Ariana Grande enjoys a close relationship with her mother Joan Grande, who introduced her Season 49 performance as Musical Guest. Perhaps we'll see a sketch team-up if Grande returns to host for a third time?
