Who is Ariana Grande’s showbiz older brother, Frankie Grande? The LGBT performer is pals with Madonna, performed in a Celine Dion Titanic parody musical and was in a throuple before he met Hale Leon
- Ten years’ Ariana Grande’s senior, Frankie refers to the singer as his ‘best friend’ – and she made her first public appearance since her divorce from Dalton Gomez at his recent Rocky Horror show
- Last year, Grande married fellow ‘nerd’ Hale Leon in a Star Wars-themed ceremony officiated by his and Ariana’s mum Joan, but was in a failed throuple beforehand that Madonna predicted wouldn’t end well
It’s not hard to tell that Ariana and Frankie Grande are siblings. Both blessed with fine features and a delicate bone structure, their visual similarities are striking. And while Ariana is famous the world over for her incredible voice, it seems her older brother was born to perform too.
So what else do we know about Frankie Grande?
Frankie and Ariana Grande share a mother, Joan
Both Frankie and Ariana were born to Joan Grande and grew up in Boca Raton in Florida, according to People. Frankie is Joan’s eldest child, shared with her first husband Victor Marchione, while Ariana came along 10 years later after Joan met her second husband, Ed Butera.
Frankie told Billboard magazine that he used to love playing dress-up and using his mum’s make-up as a child. Ariana later said that her brother’s LGBTQ+ identity had a big influence on her. “There is nothing more infectious than the joy and love that the LGBTQ community exudes,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in 2018. “I was taught to do my make-up by queens in gay bars in New York City.”
Frankie calls Ariana his “best friend”
The pair are clearly extremely close, and Frankie has said he was proud to grow up in a family where being gay was OK. “I came out to her when she was just 11 years old,” he told Attitude magazine, adding that his sister’s response was simply: “Great, when do I get to meet your boyfriend?”
Asked on the Tamron Hall Show if he got relationship advice from his sister, he replied in the affirmative. “She’s my sister and she’s my best friend, so we talk about everything,” he told the host. “We learn from each other’s experiences … we talk about mistakes, we talk about successes … you learn.”
“We’re very yin and yang,” he also told Attitude. “She’s very chilled and I’m very crazy so we’re the perfect balance.”