Cynthia Erivo is looking back on her role in “Wicked” and the media firestorm that ensued during her press run with costar Ariana Grande. And while the experience may hold slightly bitter memories for her, her reactions may not be all that justified, and we’ll tell you why.
If you’ll remember, during the press runs for both “Wicked” and “Wicked For Good,” there were countless times when both Erivo and Grande made headlines for their off-kilter, weird and eccentric behaviors towards one another.
Whether they were holding hands and crying on the red carpet and in interviews, kissing each other’s hands, finishing each other’s sentences during press, not speaking on carpets when the other had a sore throat in solidarity, or even physically protecting one another from over-excited fans—there was truly no shortage of ick-inducing moments over the last two years. (Because it truly made no sense for two costars on a film to behave in such a way, but we’ll circle back to this in a bit.)
When Erivo famously shielded Grande from a zealous fan during a “Wicked For Good” premiere in Singapore, she immediately became fodder for even more online debates, conversations, and memes. In particular, fans called into question why she appeared to be so “protective” and “mammy-like” over her costar. Some on social media exaggerated her behavior and even likened it to her being manly, depicting her as Terry Crews, with large biceps, likening her behavior to that of a “mammy” and slave-to-slave master dynamic, and more.
@raphael.sli My first time meeting Ariana Grande was ruined
a guy rushed to Ari, happened at the WICKED For Good Movie Premiere in Singapore
#wicked #singapore #arianagrande #cynthiaerivo #viral
As a result of those jokes and larger sentiments of disdain for her behavior that Erivo saw online, she’s now in a space where she’s completely turned off by conversations about her time on the film, which she expressed during a new interview with Variety.
Speaking to the jokes specifically, Erivo explained: “I think that we haven’t really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women. And I’m sure people will read this and think, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, it’s not about that.’ But it is. Because that’s what was being made fun of. It was my physique; it was my shape; it was the fact that I was bald; it was about what I looked like. “
She continued: “And because of that, there was this assumption that I was bigger than my co-star, and so I had to be controlling or protecting, and that was my role. I would hazard a guess that it would not have been the same had it been the other way around.”
Elsewhere in the interview, when the outlet tried to get her to discuss her famous singing riff in “Defying Gravity” and quote a line from “Wicked For Good,” she declined and was politely but visibly annoyed by the line of questioning, expressing her exasperation over the film.
“I feel like I’ve spent the last two years talking about it, and I think that we have an opportunity to talk about something else,” she told Variety in part. “And I love ‘Wicked,’ but I’ve just talked about it ad nauseam.”
Erivo later touched on the backlash from folks online as it related to her behavior with Grande and specifically the incident with the fan, saying that seeing all the negative chatter made her feel like her “humanity had been bastardized.”
OK, can we get real for a second? While we’re in no position to invalidate her feelings over this, we’d be remiss if we didn’t remind everyone reading this piece just how WEIRD THOSE PRESS RUN INTERVIEWS WERE. There were tears every other sit-down it seemed, awkward holding of a pinky finger, random necklace adjusting, and just some truly off-putting behaviors floating around back then. It would make anyone looking from the outside be a little curious and disconcerted about what they were witnessing.
We’ve got to zoom out and take a real, hard, honest look at how she and Grande were acting during this time and see that their antics were extremely over-the-top, dramatic and just totally unappealing for some film promotion. Sorry Cynthia, but this all didn’t happen in a vacuum and while the more misogynistic jokes and commentary definitely took it too far—people’s overall feelings of unpleasantness are completely justified.
