After becoming a TV star when she was still in her teens, Ariana Grande's immense talents led to her becoming a true music superstar. Since taking the pop music world by storm, Grande has been one of the most talked about stars in the world ever since.
As anyone who follows pop culture will likely already know, it is far too common for children and teens who become famous to struggle. Given the level of fame that Grande has achieved, it seemed like only a matter of time before she faltered in one way or another.
In 2015, security footage of Grande in a donut shop went viral and caused a huge controversy for the pop star. Even after all of those headlines, most people have no idea if Grande ever interacted with the donut shop's owner after the controversy.
What Happened With Ariana Grande And A Donut?
During Ariana Grande's truly incredible career, she has amassed the kind of fortune that even most successful business leaders would envy. On top of that, it seems all but certain that Grande's fortune will only continue to grow since she has so many ways to make money including being paid to sponsor products on social media.
In many ways, it is incredibly obvious that Grande is a fortunate person. On the other hand, Grande has been dealing with pressures most people couldn't fathom for most of her life. One of the most obvious things that Grande has to deal with is being followed by the paparazzi wherever she goes.
If photographers followed anyone all the time, the pressure they would feel to be perfect would be immense. In that scenario, it is easy to understand wanting to misbehave when the paparazzi appear to be gone.
When Grande went inside California's Wolfee Donuts in 2015, she must have thought that there weren't any cameras on her considering how she behaved. Unfortunately for Grande, however, a security camera captured everything that went on that night.
One of the biggest things Grande did in that donut shop that upset many people is she smack-talked America. After seeing a tray of donuts, Grande could be heard on camera saying, "What the **** is that? I hate Americans. I hate America! That's disgusting."
Given how patriotic many Americans are, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Grande's comments infuriated a lot of people. However, another thing that Grande could be seen doing made many observers even more upset.
When Grande and her friends were in the donut shop, several trays of donuts were left on the counter in front of them. At one point, Grande appeared to put her face very close to one of the donuts to smell it. Given that Grande didn't appear to buy the donut she put her nose by, that could have been enough to upset people, but it got much worse than that.
Seconds later in the video, Grande can be seen looking around seemingly trying to make sure she couldn't be seen by any of the donut shop's employees. Then, the footage appears to show Grande leaning in and licking a donut. Later in the same footage, Grande appears to lick a different donut.
From the angle the camera captured the footage of Grande in the donut shop, it is impossible to know for certain Grande licked the donuts. That said, the footage seems to make that clear and since Grande's camp never denied the donuts were licked, it seems all but certain they were.
After seemingly licking the donuts, Grande left them on the tray. Theoretically, it is possible that nobody bought the donuts that Grande licked but in all likelihood, someone purchased and ate them completely unaware of what had been done to them.
What Happened After Ariana Grande's Donut Shop Incident?
After the footage of Ariana Grande's conduct in the donut shop went viral, she apologized for what she said about America in a statement.
"I am EXTREMELY proud to be an American and I've always made it clear that I love my county*. What I said in a private moment with my friend, who was buying the donuts, was taken out of context and I am sorry for not using more discretion with my choice of words."
Grande's statement then attempted to explain why she said what she did about America.
"As an advocate for healthy eating, food is very important to me and I sometimes get upset by how freely we as Americans eat and consume things without giving any thought to the consequences that it has on our health and society as a whole."
Grande continued. "The fact that the United States has the highest child obesity rate in the world frustrates me. We need to do more to educate ourselves and our children about the dangers of overeating and the poison that we put into our bodies. We need to demand more from our food industry."
After Grande's apology went public, many people felt it wasn't good enough. Not long after that, Grande posted a video on her YouTube channel where she apologized at greater length. After Grande released that video, many people accepted her sentiments and moved on.
However, at least one person didn't want to just forget what happened. While speaking to the hosts of radio's The Roz & Mocha Show, Wolfee Donut's owner Joe Marin claimed he was pressing charges against Grande for licking the donuts in his shop.
"I did press charges and then when I was reading the newspaper it said that ... I decided not to, and I don't know where that came from." After being asked if he would welcome Grande back into his shop, Marin responded with a resounding, "No".
Marin also revealed that releasing the footage of Grande in his shop backfired on him. Based on the fact that workers at his shop placed trays of uncovered donuts on the counter exposing them to customers, the store was subjected to a health inspection.
Based on those findings, the shop's grade was downgraded from an "A" to a "B". Marin also claimed that changes to the shop's procedures were made, and they expected to regain their "A" grade. TMZ later reported that Wolfee Donuts' "A" grade was restored.
During a separate interview with The Wrap, Marin revealed that the Grande incident wasn't all bad for his shop. The reason for that is Marin claimed that shop sales figures were up so much that business "tripled" following the incident.
During that same interview with The Wrap, Marin said that Grande never reached out directly to him or anyone to do with the shop to apologize.
It also has to be noted that both of Grande's apologies focused on what she said about America. While Grande apologized for her conduct in the footage in general, she never addressed the donut licking specifically.
