When you think about your dream dinner guest, you might imagine an icon, a late family member, or a historical figure.
But for Ariana Grande, it’s Jeffrey Dahmer.
Dahmer was a serial killer who murdered 17 men and boys before his arrest in 1991. He died three years later in prison.
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“I was infatuated with serial killers when I was younger,” Ariana confessed on the Podcrushed podcast on Monday.
She told the hosts, Penn Badgley, Sophie Ansari, and Nava Kavelin, that she previously revealed this information during a Q&A with “young fans.”
“It was in between me being Cat [on Sam & Cat] and pop stuff,” Ariana said, “so it was like a younger group, and they were with parents, and someone said, ‘If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?'”
“I was like, ‘Oh, you’re so cute,'” she continued, remembering she asked their parents if it would be OK to answer truthfully. “They were like, ‘Sure, what’s the answer?’ and I was like, ‘I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer is pretty fascinating.'”
“I think I would have loved to have met him,” she said, smiling. “You know, maybe with a third party or someone involved. But I have questions.”
While Sophie and Nava laughed, people online didn’t find it funny.
“We are not joking about a serial killer who murdered with impunity because the police did not care about black men and gay men. Kindly f*** off!” one redditor wrote.
“Unless the question is ‘which serial killer would you have dinner with’ and you have a gun to your head there’s no damn reason to say this,” another commented in part.
Someone else said Ariana’s comments were “vile” and “horribly offensive” to the families of Dahmer’s victims.
“This is so vile,” they wrote. “I have a great interest in crime cases but the LAST thing I’d want to do is have dinner with a serial killer. Jeffrey Dahmer was a pedophile who murdered innocent people, mainly people of colour because he knew police wouldn’t take their disappearances as seriously. Joking about wanting to have dinner with him is sick and horribly offensive to the victims’ families, who are still alive and affected by the tragedy fyi. Let’s stop glorifying these psychos and pretending they are intensely enamoring people – they’re not, and if you met them in real life you would quickly realize why.”
John Shearer / Getty Images for The Hollywood Reporter
“Full fucking stop. Ain’t nothing cute, edgy, cool, or okay with saying this,” another declared. A fan agreed, “That’s such a disgusting thing to say.”
So far, Ariana hasn’t addressed the criticism, but we’ll let you know if she does. Until then, you can view her comments here around the 30:50 mark.
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