Donutgate

alternative Doughnutgate

1. slangA 2015 controversy in which American singer, songwriter, and actress Ariana Grande was seen on surveillance video in a shop licking donuts that were on display and saying “I hate Americans. I hate America. This is disgusting.”

   A family friend says “Donutgate” won’t stop Grande’s rise to the pinnacle of music stardom.

   2015 July 16, Leslie Gray Streeter, “For Ariana Grande, it began in Boca”, in The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Fla., page D1

   5 more examples

   The Focus singer and [Ricky] Alvarez started dating last year after they were spotted kissing in a surveillance footage for the now-infamous “Donutgate” where the two were seen licking donuts sold in a store.

   2016 July 28, “Grande splits from dancer-boyfriend”, in SunStar Cebu, page B5

   CHAPTER EIGHT / #donutgate / If she thought 2014 had been stormy, then 2015 was going to offer a whole new level of drama – and if you want a snapshot of how crazy her life can be, then consider this fact: the almighty storm was whipped up by a humble doughnut. […] Well, if you thought that some of these scandals centred on bizarre themes, then the doughnut storm, inevitably nicknamed ‘doughnut-gate’ by the media, was about to reach a whole new level of weirdness.

   2017, Danny White, Ariana: The Unauthorized Biography, London: Michael O’Mara Books, →ISBN

   The suffix [-gate] has also been used for hundreds of scandals in areas other than politics. For example, in 2015 in the world of entertainment there was Donutgate; journalism had its Mediagate in 2012; for sports there was Deflategate in 2015; and for technology and business Emissionsgate occurred in 2015.

   2018, Bruce M. Rowe, Diane P. Levine, A Concise Introduction to Linguistics, 5th edition, Abingdon, Oxon; NeW York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 89

   For the most ridiculous gates, you’ve got to go to the entertainment media, which brought us Donutgate, based on some random incident of singer Ariana Grande licking unpurchased donuts and stating, “I hate America. That’s disgusting.”

   2018, Brian J. O’Connor, Lori Perkins, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Watergate (But Were Afraid to Ask), New York, N.Y.: Riverdale Avenue Books, →ISBN

   The 2016 DNC email hack revealed that “donutgate” cost her a gig at the [Barack] Obama White House.

   2018 December 27, Elle Hunt, “Ariana Grande: a beacon of resilience in her worst and biggest year”, in The Guardian, page 18