Ken Ehrlich responds after Ariana accuses Grammys boss of “lying” about performance

Grande claimed her “creativity and self-expression” were stifled

Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich has responded to Ariana Grande after the pop star accusing the organiser of “lying” about her.

Earlier this week, Ehrlich claimed Grande had pulled out of a performance at the ceremony because she “felt it was too late for her to pull something together.”

Grande later disputed this version of events, saying she “offered three different songs”. “I’ve kept my mouth shut but now you’re lying about me,” she wrote on Twitter. “I can pull together a performance over night and you know that, Ken. It was when my creativity & self-expression was stifled by you that I decided not to attend. I hope the show is exactly what you want it to be and more.”

Ehrlich has now responded to Grande’s tweets. “I saw those tweets and what she said. I guess it was a surprise,” he told Rolling Stone. “I will say this, and they don’t want me to say it but I’m going to say it: The thing that probably bothered me more than whatever else she said about me is when she said I’m not collaborative.”

“The fact of the matter is — and I actually wrote a little thing in the middle of the night that I’m not going to do anything about, but, I mean. You can ask Christina Aguilera, who I asked to do ‘It’s a Man’s World’ for James Brown,” Ehrlich added.

“You can ask Melissa Etheridge, who finished her cancer treatment and I put her out on stage, bald, doing Janis Joplin. You can ask Ricky Martin who overnight became the creator of the Latin music revolution. Ask Mary J. Blige, who was scared shitless to go out there and do ‘No More Drama.’ I basically worked with her to mold it. Ask H.E.R. who’s in this show.”

Ehrlich added that he never actually spoke to Grande directly, but instead went through her management team. “I don’t know if I’m good at anything else, but I understand artists and I can hear other artists in an artist,” he says. “I don’t say to people, ‘This is what you should do.’ I approach it casually and say, hey, this might be a good idea, let’s find something in the middle.”