- Matthew Leksell recently discovered Ariana Grande's old family portrait at Disney World.
- He posted a video of the picture on TikTok; it shows Ariana, her brother, and parents in 2001.
- The Leave a Legacy wall allowed parkgoers to commemorate their vacations in the early 2000s.
Ariana Grande might have gotten her career start with Nickelodeon, but she also has history with Disney.
Matthew Leksell, 25, was visiting Disney World in Orlando, Florida, last week when he discovered that a family portrait taken of the Grande family in 2001 is featured in Epcot's Leave a Legacy attraction. It shows Ariana next to her brother Frankie, as well as their parents.
He filmed himself after finding their photo, and later shared it to TikTok. His video now has nearly 300,000 views at the time of writing.
The Leave a Legacy attraction was active between 1999 and 2007. At the time, parkgoers could pay to have their family photos etched into granite panels to commemorate their vacations.
The stones originally greeted parkgoers who entered Epcot, as they sat in front of Spaceship Earth. In 2021, however, the original attraction was removed, and a new rainbow version was installed just outside the entrance.
Speaking with Insider, Leksell said his friend and his mom have a picture at the attraction, so they decided to look at it when they visited together last week. As they looked for their photo, Leksell scanned the QR code on the attraction and began looking through the website Disney provides so that you can easily find your spot on the wall.
Because you only needed to enter a last name to find a photo, Leksell said he had the idea to search for one of his favorite stars.
"I'm a big Ariana Grande fan and know that she would visit the parks frequently, so jokingly I put in her mom's name to see if anything came up," he said. "That's when I found the pictures of her and her family."
Leksell said anyone who wants to see the picture in person simply has to visit the wall, scan the QR code, and then search for the Grandes to determine the exact location of their portrait.
"I know that *NSYNC has a spot on the wall too, so it's really cool to think that anyone who visited the parks at some time could be on that wall," he added.