Robert De Niro Confirms Ariana Grande Cast in ‘Meet the Parents 4’

Just days after it was reported that Ariana Grande has been cast in Meet the Parents 4, the comedy series’ co-star, Robert De Niro, confirmed that he’ll be sharing screen time with the singer and Oscar-nominated Wicked star.

On Monday night’s (June 9) Tonight Show, De Niro, 81, passed the lie detector test and said “that’s true,” when host Jimmy Fallon asked if the rumors about Grande’s casting were accurate. Asked if he knows Grande, De Niro said no, but recalled that they met seven or eight years ago when he dropped in to Saturday Night Live with one of his kids, who wanted to meet the singer.

“I didn’t do something with her, but she was on the same show,” De Niro recalled. “And we talked and I introduced her and one of my kids wanted to meet her.” At press time it was unknown what role Grande, 31, will play in the series about a taciturn retired CIA agent (De Niro) coming to grips with his bumbling, nebbish nurse son-in-law (Ben Stiller), though The Hollywood Reporter reported that the singer will play a “ball-busting” woman engaged to marry the now-adult son of Stiller and co-star Teri Polo’s Greg and Pam Focker.

The cast has been talking up the latest edition to the franchise, with De Niro, Stiller, Polo and director Jay Roach celebrating the 25th anniversary of the original Meet the Parents while taking the stage at De Niro’s Tribeca Festival this week to talk about the sequel. Stiller, 59, called Grande “so talented… so great with comedy,” during a Q&A at the festival. And while Stiller said he couldn’t say too much about Grande’s character, he revealed that the role is “really, really funny and kind of the engine of the whole movie.”

When the interviewer joked that because of Grande’s inclusion the fourth go-round should, naturally, be a musical, De Niro quipped, “half the scenes that I have with her will be singing scenes.” John Hamburg, who co-wrote the first three movies, will direct the fourth one, the follow-up to Meet the Fockers (2004) and Little Fockers (2010).

Grande got her start on the Nickelodeon series Victorious and iCarly before becoming a breakout pop superstar and earning Oscar and Golden Globe best supporting actress nominations for her role as Glinda in the first part of the double-up big screen adaptation of the musical Wicked. It will be Grande’s first new film role following her acclaimed turn in Wicked, whose second installment, Wicked: For Good, is due out on Nov. 21.

Watch De Niro talk Grande on Tonight Show below.