She made a Grande entrance.
Paige Niemann looks so much like Ariana Grande that when she walked her first red carpet she was mistaken for the A-lister multiple times.
“A lot of people there that night actually thought I was her. People asked to take pictures. That was kind of overwhelming,” Niemann, 21, told The Post.
The Modesto, Calif., native was invited to the premiere of the sci-fi thriller “Companion” last January — where some of the movie’s actors approached her thinking she was the “Wicked” star.
“One of them said, ‘I haven’t seen you since SNL,’” recalled the influencer, who boasts 823,000 followers on Instagram.
Her photo from that night — where she donned a black spaghetti-strapped BCBG MaxAzria tulle gown and her hair pulled back — even made it onto the website of the stock image company Getty Images.
“I posted one of the Getty Images and that’s when it caught the attention of the internet, and basically it became a viral meme overnight,” she said.
Niemann began getting told she was a dead ringer for the “7 Rings” singer at just 10 years old.
“Someone at school said that I looked like her, and that’s kind of how it started,” she recalled.
She launched her TikTok page in November of 2019 when she was 15 — and just three weeks later, Grande herself reached out.
“She sent me a DM on Instagram. She said, ‘Always do what makes you happy.’ That I’m beautiful as I am,” recalled Niemann.
“And I basically told her that what I do is just for entertainment purposes only, and I still love myself at the end of the day. She said, ‘Proud of you and have all the fun.’”
Niemann said it takes minimal effort to be Grande’s doppelgänger.
“Because of my face, it just happens to look similar,” she said. “I really don’t really even have to try. I just do very simple, basic makeup.”
People are known to stop her on the street to marvel at her likeness to the singer-actress.
“I’m usually just asked to take a picture or it’s someone saying you look like her. And most of the time, ironically, I’m not even wearing makeup or done up at all,” she said.
Her resemblance to Grande has opened doors for her professionally — and led to an upcoming docuseries — which she could only reveal is about her life “and just trying to figure things out, like who I want to become.”
“It shows a side of me that the internet doesn’t get to see,” said Niemann, who hopes to pursue a career in modeling and reality TV.
When asked if she hoped to meet Grande in person one day, she paused for longer than expected and mused, “I mean, it would be a bizarre moment.”
The post Ariana Grande lookalike dishes on being mistaken for the A-lister on the red carpet appeared first on New York Post.
