Why is everyone searching for Ariana Grande deepfakes?

Boca Raton’s own Ariana Grande is no stranger to top five lists. The singer and actress has been shortlisted for Grammy and Golden Globe nominations. Her tours and albums have also made year-end-top-selling lists. But now Ariana or a facsimile of Ms. Grande finds herself in a strangely futuristic top five list.  According to CreateUGC, an AI image generation platform, Ariana Grande deepfakes over the last year are among the most searched celebrity deepfakes. Her deepfakes are fourth on the list of most sought, following only the gaming streamer Pokimane, Taylor Swift, and Scarlet Johansson. After Ariana at number four, the rest of the top ten in order are actresses Margot Robbie, Anne Hathaway,  content creator Charli D’Amelio, Jennifer Lawrence, Lil Tay, and Kim Kardashian.

You’ll notice that the entire top ten list of celebrity deepfake searches is made up of younger, attractive women, and you’re probably not going out on too far a limb if you assume that these deepfakes probably do not have the celebrities taking part in wholesome, family-friendly activities. You have to get all the way to #19 to find a man on the list with Tom Cruise, followed by Elon Musk at 23 and MrBeast at 24. Surprisingly, Donald Trump is nowhere to be found on the list of celebrity deepfake searches, but perhaps as a head of state he is not considered a celebrity?

On a press release, CreateUGC described the methodology behind their celebrity deepfake findings. “Google Keyword Planner was used to analyze the global search volume for celebrity deepfakes between June 2025 and May 2026, using a list of 250 celebrities from YouGov and the search combination ‘[celebrity name] deepfake.’ An average monthly search volume was calculated for each celebrity.”

You’d think there would be enough official or actual footage of Ariana Grande to whet people’s appetites. Her Wicked movies are streaming, and later this year, she’s set to costar in the comedy sequel Focker-in-Law. Although she announced earlier this month that she will take a break from touring due to health concerns, she has a seemingly unlimited number of music videos, and there’s all kinds of footage of her concerts, which earlier this summer made it to South Florida. But apparently there’s high demand to see her performing wicked acts that she’s unwilling to film or distribute.