Who is Ariana Grande’s showbiz older brother, Frankie Grande? The LGBT performer is pals with Madonna, performed in a Celine Dion Titanic parody musical and was in a throuple before he met Hale Leon

It’s not hard to tell that Ariana and Frankie Grande are siblings. Both blessed with fine features and a delicate bone structure, their visual similarities are striking. And while Ariana is famous the world over for her incredible voice, it seems her older brother was born to perform too.

The effervescent, make-up-wearing 40-year-old said he came out as gay to his sister when she was just 11 years old, per Harper’s Bazaar, and the pair remain close to this day. In fact, the “Thank U, Next” singer was seen in public for the very first time since her divorce from Dalton Gomez when she showed up at The Rocky Horror Show in Pennsylvania, which her brother was starring in.

So what else do we know about Frankie Grande?

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Frankie, Ariana and Joan Grande dressed up as characters from The Wizard of Oz back in the day. Photo: @frankiejgrande/Instagram© Provided by South China Morning Post

Both Frankie and Ariana were born to Joan Grande and grew up in Boca Raton in Florida, according to People. Frankie is Joan’s eldest child, shared with her first husband Victor Marchione, while Ariana came along 10 years later after Joan met her second husband, Ed Butera.

Half-siblings Frankie Grande and Ariana Grande have the same mother, Joan Grande. Photo: @frankiejgrande/Instagram© Provided by South China Morning Post

Frankie told Billboard magazine that he used to love playing dress-up and using his mum’s make-up as a child. Ariana later said that her brother’s LGBTQ+ identity had a big influence on her. “There is nothing more infectious than the joy and love that the LGBTQ community exudes,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in 2018. “I was taught to do my make-up by queens in gay bars in New York City.”

Frankie calls Ariana his “best friend”

Frankie and Ariana Grande are© Provided by South China Morning Post

The pair are clearly extremely close, and Frankie has said he was proud to grow up in a family where being gay was OK. “I came out to her when she was just 11 years old,” he told Attitude magazine, adding that his sister’s response was simply: “Great, when do I get to meet your boyfriend?”

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Asked on the Tamron Hall Show if he got relationship advice from his sister, he replied in the affirmative. “She’s my sister and she’s my best friend, so we talk about everything,” he told the host. “We learn from each other’s experiences … we talk about mistakes, we talk about successes … you learn.”

“We’re very yin and yang,” he also told Attitude. “She’s very chilled and I’m very crazy so we’re the perfect balance.”

Like his pop star sister, he’s a born performer

Frankie Grande said it was© Provided by South China Morning Post

With a motto of “go Grande or go home,” as seen in video clips online, Frankie is the opposite of shy. A lover of acting and theatre, he’s performed in a number of raucous, often tongue-in-cheek performances – from award-winning Celine Dion parody musical TitanIque to the solo cabaret act Livin’ La Vida Grande and, more recently, a regional theatre production of The Rocky Horror Show.

The vivacious star was even on series 16 of American Big Brother back in 2014, where he concealed his identity from the other housemates for a portion of the show. He ended up placing fifth out of 16 contestants.

He was once in a throuple

Frankie Grande was in a throuple with married couple Daniel Sinasohn and Mike Pophis, but it didn’t work out. Photo: @guiltynewsfr/Instagram© Provided by South China Morning Post

Grande admitted to the world in 2018 that he was once part of a “throuple” with married couple Daniel Sinasohn and Mike Pophis. Talking to Us Weekly at Heidi Klum’s Halloween event that year, he said that the two men “complete me in different ways and I am honoured to be in this very special, very fun relationship”.

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However, he later revealed to Tamron Hall that when he told Madonna about his relationship, the Queen of Pop wasn’t impressed. “Well, that’s not going to end well,” she reportedly said to him. And she turned out to be right. Grande told Hall though that even though the relationship hadn’t worked, it taught him that he wanted to be in a monogamous pair with his own special someone. “Like my sister would say, I’m so beepin’ grateful for my ex,” he joked.

He proposed to his husband in virtual reality

Happily, Grande found exactly what he was looking for a year later when he met actor and live streamer Hale Leon. He proposed to Leon while they were both wearing VR headsets, getting down on one knee in a virtual world of giant plants amid “Will You Marry Me?” banners and fireworks.

The pair tied the knot in a Star Wars-themed ceremony on May 4, 2022, officiated by Grande’s mum Joan. “We’re nerds,” Grande told Tamron Hall.

The couple share a toy poodle called Appa, and Grande told People that they’ve talked about having children one day. “When I make that movie-star money, honey, we can talk about a family,” he joked, saying that until then his priorities are a little different: “I still want to be able to grab that stupid Birkin bag. Those little ones are so cute … eventually it’ll be my baby bag, but for now, it’s just my bag.”