a showtune from 2003, sung live on a film set, that beat four contemporary pop singles in a pop category twenty-three years later.
the short answer
the act one closer of wicked, sung by cynthia erivo as elphaba with ariana grande as glinda, recorded live on the set of the 2024 film rather than mimed to a studio track. it won the grammy for best pop duo/group performance in february 2026, beating four contemporary pop singles — grande's third grammy and erivo's second.
who actually sings what
this is the most common confusion about it. defying gravity is elphaba's song and erivo carries it. grande's glinda is not a backing vocal — she has the counter-melody and the whole of the argument against, and the last third of the number is a duet in which the two characters are saying incompatible things at the same time. the reason it works dramatically is that glinda is not wrong.
the vocal writing is also genuinely difficult in a way that is easy to miss: glinda's part sits high, tight and mostly in head voice while elphaba's sits below and gets progressively louder, which means grande has to be audible against an increasingly enormous sound without pushing into a register that would make the character wrong.
recorded live on set
jon m. chu has said that both actors insisted on singing live during filming rather than lip-syncing to a pre-recorded studio version, and that neither of them hesitated about it. that is not how film musicals are usually made; the pre-record is standard because it removes an enormous number of technical problems from a set.
the grammy
at the ceremony on 1 february 2026 it beat apt. by bruno mars and rosé, golden from k-pop demon hunters, gabriela by katseye, and 30 for 30 by sza and kendrick lamar. it was the only nominee that was not a contemporary pop single and was widely expected to lose. neither grande nor erivo attended.
for grande it is a third grammy from twenty nominations, and the first for a recording that is not a pop record in any sense — the awards piece sets out the whole record. for erivo it is a second, after best musical theater album for the colour purple in 2017.
the oscars performance
the two of them opened the 2025 academy awards ceremony with it, live, months after the film's release and weeks after grande's own nomination in the supporting actress category. it is the single most-watched thing either of them has done, and it is the reason a very large number of people who have never seen the film know the song.
where the song came from
stephen schwartz wrote it for the 2003 broadway production, where idina menzel sang it. it is the reason the show ran for two decades, and it is one of a very small number of showtunes written this century that function outside a theatre. everything about the film version — including what the sequel had to add for glinda — proceeds from the problem of how to film a number that already worked perfectly on a stage.
questions people ask
who sings defying gravity in the wicked movie?
cynthia erivo as elphaba, with ariana grande as glinda on the counter-melody and the duet section.
did defying gravity win a grammy?
yes — best pop duo/group performance at the 2026 ceremony, on 1 february. neither performer attended.
was defying gravity recorded live?
yes, on the film set rather than mimed to a studio pre-record. both actors insisted on it and the director has confirmed it.
who wrote defying gravity?
stephen schwartz, for the 2003 broadway production of wicked, where idina menzel first sang it.