Ariana Grande surprised her fans with a story she recalled from years ago -- the fact that her younger self would have liked to have sat down for a hypothetical meal with Jeffrey Dahmer.
The singer recently went on Penn Badgley's "Podcrushed" podcast -- and she admitted to having previously told fans that the late convicted serial killer was her dream dinner guest ... 'cause she's always wanted to pick his brain.
Ariana -- who said she was infatuated with serial killers growing up -- explained the topic came up during a Q&A with young fans at the start of her singing career ... and she says she told the kid the truth, that she'd wanna chat up Dahmer in a would-be dinner.
Ari says she has so many questions for him ... and jokingly notes she might need to have a third party around for safety. But she's dead serious -- that's who she'd wanna interview.
Of course, Dahmer was murdered in prison in the '90s ... this while serving time for murdering and dismembering/eating upwards of 17 victims between 1978 and 1991 -- which has been well-chronicled.
So, Ari's dream will never come true ... BTW, she says she had this dream dinner guest pick locked away for a while -- well before the Netflix series came out and was a huge hit.
As you know, Dahmer's story was brought back to the spotlight in 2022, after Evan Peters played the infamous killer in a miniseries for Netflix, called "Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story." Though, the show was criticized for being insensitive to the victims' families.
Of course, Ariana isn't the first celebrity to have a fixation on true crime ... with Chrissy Teigen, Mindy Kaling, Kim Kardashian, Anna Kendrick and more all expressing their passion for the dark genre. But in this instance, Ari is getting outright dragged.
Understandable, we suppose ... but in the same breath, some are actually on the same page -- saying Dahmer is, objectively, an interesting person ... from an analytical POV anyway.