Ariana Grande blocked from White House performance
Ariana Grande had a performance at the White House blocked when she was caught licking donuts.
The 23-year-old singer caused controversy in July 2015 when she was caught on camera using her tongue to touch a number of the bakery items which were on display in a store, and also said she hated America, and it has now emerged the incident cost her the chance to perform in front of President Barack Obama at a gala late last year.
Leaked emails published on Wikileaks showed a request was made for her suitability to be vetted, and while she was shown to have a clean criminal and financial record, her bizarre behaviour in the store was flagged up to senior staff officials.
An email sent to a number of staff members on September 10 2015 read: "Ariana Butera – video caught her licking other peoples’ donuts while saying she hates America; Republican Congressman used this video and said it was a double standard that liberals were not upset with her like they are with Trump who criticized Mexicans; cursed out a person on Twitter after that person used an offensive word towards her brother.(sic)"
The email also highlighted the fact she’d avoided criminal charges over the incident, but mentioned Ariana had made "two long YouTube apologies."
It added: "In the second of her two YouTube apologies posted last week, the 22-year-old singer said she was ‘disgusted’ with herself and wanted to ‘disappear’ after TMZ posted the video."
After reviewing the report and proposed performance, White House employee Bobby Schmuck simply replied: "Nope, sorry."
Ariana previously apologized for her "offensive" conduct in the store.
She said: "First of all, my behavior was very offensive and I apologized. There’s no excuse, or there’s nothing to justify it. I think as human beings, we all say and do things that we don’t mean at all sometimes.
"That’s how we grow and I’ve learned what it feels like to disappoint so many people who love and believe in you, and that’s an excruciating feeling."
Joe Marin – who owns Wolfee Donuts in California – previously alleged that the ‘Break Free’ hitmaker was "rude" to his staff and licked two donuts before spitting on others.
He said: "She was looking around, and that’s when I saw she was licking two of the donuts. Then she went to another tray that was on top and there was a tray of powdered donuts. So I zoomed (the camera) into her mouth, and the powdered ones, she did not lick them, she spit (sic) on those.
"She spit on one of them, and she dared that guy she was seeing (dancer Ricky Alvarez) and he spit on it, too. I saw they were getting a kick out of it."
