The Shrinking star was speaking with E! News correspondent Justin Sylvester when Justin suddenly spotted Ariana Grande walking up on the red carpet.
Turning away from Jessica, Justin said, “You guys, Ariana Grande is coming right up right now!” Jessica laughed awkwardly and appeared to try to play along, saying, “She’s coming up!”
“Ariana, how are you, honey?” Justin added, as Jessica drifted aside. But Ariana, seemingly noticing what had just happened, didn’t immediately engage. Instead, she stopped to acknowledge Jessica first.
“You look so stunning, congratulations!” Ariana told her. “You’re amazing.”
Jessica thanked Ariana and appeared to reassure her, seemingly saying, “It’s OK,” as she started to walk away. Ariana then leaned in for a goodbye hug, which Jessica accepted, replying, “Of course.”
As you can imagine, the moment did not sit well with viewers.
“That was disrespectful,” one Reddit user wrote. “Jessica deserved the same attention, period.”
Another added, “RUUUUUUDE! Even Ariana was so mortified.”
At the same time, many praised Ariana for how she handled the situation.
“Ariana smoothed that over really well,” one person said. “I love that Ariana basically ignored him for a hot minute to interact with Jessica and compliment her before she gave him the time of the day. It was subtle, but you can see it was done consciously,” another added.
“Say what you will about Ariana, but she handled this gracefully,” someone else wrote, while another commenter said her hug “said alot.”
“I think ari read the room and felt bad. It was rude on everyone else’s part. Ari did right by turning her back to hold off the interview and acknowledge Jessica,” another expressed, while one more called the singer “goated for that.”
Jessica Williams, you’re an icon. You looked amazing, and I’m so glad Ari stopped you to give you your flowers. You can watch Jessica now on Shrinking, and to see the red carpet moment between her and Ariana, go here.