Jennifer Coolidge is praising Ariana Grande for saving her career.
Coolidge, 61, starred in Grande’s 2018 music video for “Thank You, Next.” Before her appearance, the “White Lotus” star spoke about the “flatness” of her career.
“When people ask how my life has changed, you know, I’m interested,” Coolidge told Grande in Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainer of the Year issue.
“Yeah, I got to do ‘White Lotus,’ but I think it really started when you asked me to be in the ‘Thank U, Next’ video.”
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Jennifer Coolidge says Ariana Grande saved her career after appearing in the singer’s 2018 music video for “Thank You, Next.”
(Getty Images)
Coolidge continued, “I mean, I got ‘Hopeful Young Woman’ out of there and all that. You were kind of an instigator. I really believe that. I think if you hadn’t put me on the ‘Thank you, next.’ was. and I don’t think I’d be here if I had done that imitation.”
Grande responded to Coolidge’s claims by saying it was “the most wrong thing I’ve ever heard,” but the actress insisted that her role in the 2018 music video was crucial to her career.
“No, I really think so! And I think it’s great,” Coolidge said. “I’m kind of flat and you’re in my situation.”
The Legally Blonde star added: “I just want to thank you. I know you’re so humble, you won’t admit it, but I just want to thank you.”
Coolidge appeared on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” in January and detailed how she played a role in Grande’s hit video, which has more than 700 million views on YouTube.
“Not much happened, then Ariana did this impersonation on your show and you encouraged her, and then the ball started rolling,” he told Fallon.
Ariana Grande impresses Jennifer Coolidge on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in May 2018.
(Photo by Andrew Lipovsky)
In 2018, Grande appeared on Fallon’s show, where she impersonated Coolidge’s character Paulette Bonafonte from the movie Legally Blonde.
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“My friend Teresa, who’s about her age, she was like, ‘You know, you should have talked to Ariana and said I thought it was a really good impersonation,’ and I was like, ‘No, she has like 260 million followers.’ . , it’s robots! Robots respond to DMs and we’ll never get to it,” Coolidge said.
The actress decided to listen to her friend and tell Grande anyway.
“I did it anyway, and this response came back, and the next thing you know, I went over to his house and fitted the closet for ‘Thanks, Next.’ It was all because of Jimmy Fallon!”
Over the past four years, Coolidge has starred in two seasons of HBO’s White Lotus and Netflix’s The Watcher.