Ariana Grande woke up this week to find a life-changing milestone she hasn't actually reached — plastered across social media as if it were breaking news.
According to a widely shared tweet on X, formerlyTwitter, the pop star is 'reportedly pregnant' with her first child byWickedco-star Ethan Slater. Within hours, the claim had raced around the platform, racking up more than 11,000 likes and seeding a fresh round of speculation on TikTok and beyond.
There is one fairly major problem with the story: it is completely made up.
Grande has not announced a pregnancy. There is no baby-on-the-way statement, no coy bump photos, no subtle clue-hunting required. The original source of the claim, the X account Hoops Crave, is a self-described parody page known for posting fake 'news' for laughs. Yet somehow, its latest invention still managed to grip parts of the fandom — and expose just how eager people are to narrate a stranger's private life for them.
The latest 'Is Ariana Grande pregnant?' rumour did not appear out of nowhere. It built on an earlier swirl of TikTok chatter late last year, when creators began pushing oddly specific stories about the singer allegedly finding out she was pregnant during her firstWickedpress interview and expecting a baby in October 2025.
None of those claims were ever backed up with so much as a screenshot from a reputable outlet. They were pure hearsay wrapped in dramatic editing and passed around until the details sounded authoritative through repetition alone.
Hoops Crave seized on that background noise and turned it into a viral 'report' this week. The account's tweet, framed in the deadpan style of a sports or entertainment scoop, was shared thousands of times before many users clocked the obvious: this is parody. This is not a journalist, or even a fan account with a track record. It is someone having a go at manufacturing chaos for engagement.
Ariana Grande is pregnant with her first child with Ethan Slater.pic.twitter.com/xSLrXIhr6T
X's own context feature — written by other users and shown under misleading posts — eventually underlined the obvious. '@HoopsCrave is a parody account. Ariana Grande has not announced any pregnancy,' the note read, for those willing to read the small print.
Plenty of fans, to their credit, were sceptical from the outset. 'Oh my god for a moment I thought this was real thank good it's a random account,' one admitted, capturing that queasy mix of initial panic and belated relief. Another was blunter: 'I'm not believing anything that's being posted by this page.'
Source: International Business Times UK
