Evan Rosen | New York Daily News
Ariana Grande is facing backlash from the family of one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims for saying the serial killer was once her dream dinner date.
Grande’s comments came during a recent appearance on Penn Badgley’s “Podcrushed” podcast, during which she recounted a young fan early in her career asking who she would choose as a dinner guest, dead or alive.
“I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer’s pretty fascinating,” the singer, 31, joked about saying at the time, adding she used to be “infatuated” with serial killers like him.
The conversation has since drawn the ire of the family of Tony Hughes, a deaf, nonverbal victim who Dahmer killed in 1991.
Hughes’ mother, Shirley, told TMZ Thursday she was disturbed by the remark, particularly the flippant way Grande laughed at the topic of Dahmer and didn’t seem to show any empathy for the victims’ families.
“To me, it seems like she’s sick in her mind. It’s not fancy or funny to say you would have wanted to do dinner with him. It’s also not something you should say to young people, which she says she did,” Hughes said of the pop star.
Barbara, Tony’s sister, called for Grande to publicly apologize and send a message to her fans that such remarks are inappropriate.
Others on social media echoed the family’s sentiments: “Why does nobody else find this incredibly weird,” wrote one X user.
“Ariana Grande casually saying she’d like to have dinner with Jeffrey Dahmer … while his victims’ relatives are still alive … where’s the media training for celebs nowadays?” said another.
Dahmer, who was also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal and the Milwaukee Monster, killed 17 men between 1978 and 1991, and was later beaten to death while in prison in 1994.
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