Literally Everyone Is Creeped Out By The Way This Bishop Grabbed Ariana Grande

A bishop completely overstepped his boundaries with Ariana Grande

Ariana Grande performed a beautiful, moving tribute for Aretha Franklin during her funeral on Friday. Afterward, she was joined on stage by Bishop Charles H. Ellis III who gripped his hand right by the side of her breast and would not let go.

The video is creepy AF and his subsequent apology was pretty useless.

The clip from the interaction is 28 seconds of pure uncomfortableness. The bishop’s hand shouldn’t even be on Grande at all, let alone placed so closely and tightly near her chest. It literally just seems like he had the audacity to cop a feel on stage and thought he could get away with it.

Thankfully, people called him out immediately and filed their outraged under the hashtag RespectAriana. Many pointed out that the singer looked uncomfortable and was trying to move her body away from him. Nobody could quite get over how much this guy had overstepped boundaries.

Ellis has since offered an apology for his actions. “It would never be my intention to touch any woman’s breast. … I don’t know I guess I put my arm around her,” he told the Associated Press. “Maybe I crossed the border, maybe I was too friendly or familiar but again, I apologize.”

Okay, let’s fact check that. Putting your arm around someone is putting your arm around their shoulder. Not tightly squeezing their ribcage for a prolonged amount of time. And, again, he shouldn’t have even been touching her in the first place.

He added: “I hug all the female artists and the male artists. Everybody that was up, I shook their hands and hugged them. That’s what we are all about in the church. We are all about love.”

Let’s fact check that one too. We’re not talking about a hug. We’re talking about touching that was totally different from a hug. And I would pay money to see footage of this bishop ever touching a male artist the same way that he touched Grande.

Ellis also apologized for making a joke about thinking that Grande was a new item on the Taco Bell menu.

“I personally and sincerely apologize to Ariana and to her fans and to the whole Hispanic community,” he said. “When you’re doing a program for nine hours you try to keep it lively, you try to insert some jokes here and there.”

*Sigh.* Literally the only things that should have mattered on Friday was Aretha Franklin and all of the touching tributes to her. Hopefully, all of this backlash has taught Ellis to keep his hands to himself.