The stars seem to be aligning, not in the cosmos, but in the promotional campaign for Ariana Grande‘s latest album Eternal Sunshine. Last week, the musician announced “The Boy Is Mine” as the third single from the project and set June 3 as the release date for its official music video. In the lead up, Grande has mostly kept details about the Christian Breslauer-directed visual under wraps, while also hinting that not only is the boy hers, he might also be Penn Badgley.
On Saturday, the podcast PodCrushed, on which Badgley is a co-host, shared an Instagram Reel and TikTok addressing the rumors buzzing around on the internet. “Not the whole internet showing up to ask us if Penn is in The Boy Is Mine MV,” the post read, with the caption adding: “The Boy Is Ours.” Grande reposted the clip on her Instagram Story without expanding any further.
A more concrete hint arrived on Monday when Grande shared a TikTok of the actor dancing to the chorus from “The Boy Is Mine,” all flailing arms and shimmying shoulders.
The first teaser trailer for the upcoming video did not involve Badgley and lasted just 10-seconds. It showed a man turning on a faucet and plunging his face in the sink. While his head is down, a pair of claw-nailed hands emerge from the crack in the door.
As the third single from Eternal Sunshine, “The Boy Is Mine” follows “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)” — the video for which paid homage to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — and “Yes, And,” which drew inspiration from Janet Jackson and Paula Adbul.
Grande is a long-documented Gossip Girl fan, but it remains to be seen whether Badgley’s apparent appearance in “The Boy Is Mine” video will lean closer to Dan Humphrey — i.e. pretentious, annoying, bad liar, doesn’t have a storyline that actually aligns with him being Gossip Girl — or Joe Goldberg, the character he plays in Netflix’s You — i.e. serial killer who thinks baseball caps are the ultimate disguise.
“[Joe] is like putting on a straitjacket,” Badgley told Rolling Stone last year about the character. “It’s specific, and I wonder how it’ll feel the next time I pick up a big lift creatively as an actor, because it is so technical. Every scene is not really that scene. It’s the scene with me and my thoughts and a third and fourth level. I feel like I’ve learned so much and I do love the process and I’m grateful for it. But when it’s over, I’ll be glad to close that book and say, ‘That was a good book. Let’s leave that book there. Just put it on the shelf.’”