Ariana Grande will not appear in the 13th season of American Horror Story. Her exit came down to a direct conflict between the show's production schedule and her ongoing Eternal Sunshine Tour, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Billboard reported that Grande was first announced as part of the AHS Season 13 cast on Halloween 2025. The role would have marked her first appearance on the Ryan Murphy anthology series and a reunion with the producer, who cast her in his 2015 series Scream Queens. A recently released teaser for the season did not include her.
Grande did not shoot any scenes before leaving the project. AHS Season 13 began production in April, the same period when her tour schedule was taking shape. The Eternal Sunshine Tour launched June 6 in Oakland. In late June, she rescheduled three tour dates due to production issues, moving a July 12 Brooklyn show to July 14 and shifting two Boston concerts from July 22 and 24 to July 23 and 26.
The season moves forward without her. The returning cast includes Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd, and Jessica Lange, along with director John Waters. Several cast members are reprising their roles from the Coven storyline. American Horror Story: 13 is set to premiere September 24 on FX before streaming on Hulu.
For Grande, the tour remains the priority. Eternal Sunshine, her seventh studio album released in 2024, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and produced two Billboard Hot 100 number one singles. The tour is her first headlining run since the 2019 Sweetener World Tour. Remaining dates include stops in New York, Canada, and Chicago before the tour moves overseas.
Her eighth album, Petal, arrives July 31. Its lead single, "Hate That I Made You Love Me," recently gave her a 10th career Hot 100 number one, tying her for 10th-most in the chart's history. She is also set to appear in the Meet the Parents sequel Focker-In-Law, due out this fall.
