Ariana Grande<\/a> at the Wicked: For Good premiere in Singapore.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Cynthia Erivo has reflected on the fallout to Wicked: For Good<\/p>\n
The 39-year-old actress has opened up on her decision not to campaign for an Oscar for her role as Elphaba in the blockbuster musical sequel, and she admitted it was influenced by the fallout of the incident in November 2025.<\/p>\n
The cast were walking down a yellow brick road during the event at Universal Studios Singapore when a man, Johnson Wen, vaulted the barrier and rushed at Ariana, with Cynthia stepping in to shield her friend.<\/p>\n
She told Variety: \u201cNobody moved. Nobody moved. So I moved because my brain went, \u2018Get him away! Get him out of here!’<\/p>\n
“My immediate reaction was \u2018Get him away from us.’ And what people couldn’t see is that he wouldn’t let go [of Ariana]. He wouldn’t let go. So I just kept pushing at him to get him off.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nCynthia has blasted the fallout, with “insidious” memes and TikTok videos focused on her appearance as a Black woman.<\/p>\n
\nShe added: “And I\u2019m sure people will read this and think, \u2018Oh, for goodness\u2019 sake, it\u2019s not about that.\u2019 But it is.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBecause that\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
\n“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.”<\/p>\n
\nAsked if that was part of her motivation to not campaign for an Academy Award, and she admitted “maybe in a way it did”.<\/p>\n
\nCynthia said: “I just felt like my humanity had been bastardised.<\/p>\n
\n“I felt like something I did instinctively had been made to be something that it simply was not because of the way people see women who look like me, and because of the assumptions that are made, and I just didn\u2019t want to be a part of that, really and truly.<\/p>\n
\n“I didn\u2019t want to put myself through it. I didn\u2019t feel like I deserved it.”<\/p>\n
\nCynthia also argued that there was “already a sort of upturned nose at the second instalment” of Wicked.<\/p>\n
\nThe actress noted that despite the whirlwind around the projects, there was still some positive impact too.<\/p>\n
\nShe added: “Wicked was its own storm in a teacup. It took over everything and \u2014 beautifully \u2014 changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"28 May 2026 Cynthia Erivo felt like her “humanity had been bastardised” after defending Ariana Grande at the Wicked: For Good premiere in Singapore. Cynthia Erivo has reflected on the fallout to Wicked: For Good The 39-year-old actress has opened up on her decision not to campaign for an Oscar for her role as Elphaba […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":242785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[211,1082],"class_list":{"0":"post-242784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-ariana-grande","9":"tag-cynthia-erivo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}