Ariana Grande has taken on the role of Penn Badgley‘s stalker in a Joe Goldberg-meets-Gotham-City-role-reversal in the music video for “The Boy is Mine.” This video has everything: Grande as Catwoman who is also a stalker; Badgley as the city’s mayor who loves cats; Brandy and Monica as news anchors — and so much more!
The sultry music video, which was directed by Christian Breslauer, shows Grande’s character in her home creating some love potion concoction that’s obviously meant for her latest obsession, Mayor Max Sterling, played by Badgley. We see photos and scary drawings of Badgley around her apartment — in true stalker fashion — as Grande watches Mayor Max give a speech on TV about the city’s rat problem.
When Badgley declares they’re going to release a bunch of cats into the streets to try and curb the rat infestation, Grande takes it a bit too literally and dresses up as a sexy Catwoman, complete with a mask and leather outfit. Grande breaks into Badgley’s apartment to try and give him her potion, but it turns out she doesn’t need it! Finally, somebody to match his freak!
“The Boy is Mine” is Grande’s third single off of her seventh studio album Eternal Sunshine and is her own take on the 1998 classic hit of the same name from Brandy and Monica. Following the release of her album in March, Grande told Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe that she had always wanted to reimagine the 90s hit.
“In a way, I was kind of like, ‘This is a very bad idea.,'” Grande said at the time. “But there is a large group of my fans that really do love a bad girl anthem, and this is an elevated version of that.”
Ariana Grande teased that Penn Badgley would be part of the music video when she posted a video of the Gossip Girl actor dancing with “The Boy is Mine” playing. Badgley shared some behind-the-scenes photos from the video shoot on Instagram, writing in the caption, “Hey ma I’m in a music video!”
“The boy may be yours but the pleasure was all mine @arianagrande thank you for inviting me into your orbit for a moment & @christhedirector for building a little world to play in for a day,” Badgley continued. “And in the presence of @brandy and @monicadenise ?? Honored to be alongside these icons”
Watch the full music video below: