If it felt like that infamous press tour for Wicked had your head spinning, spare a thought for Cynthia Erivo, who was right in the middle of the media storm for all of it.
While promoting the two Wicked movies in 2024 and 2025, respectively, Cynthia and co-star Ariana Grande inadvertently sparked an absolute sea of memes and viral moments, from the ridiculous and bizarre to the hilarious and genuinely tear-jerking.
Throughout it all, the film’s leads were having their friendship picked apart, which the British actor reflected on during a new interview with The Guardian.
“It was interesting that there were many people who had become psychologists from their couches,” the Oscar nominee explained, remembering people’s “annoyance” that “two women could actually be friends”, something she found “weird”.
“Like, why are they friends? Why are they connected? There must be something wrong with them,” she then recalled critics questioning. “Why are they showing emotion? How dare they cry? And how dare they laugh? And how dare they be emotive and alive?”
She continued: “It’s a double-edged sword. Because if we were dead behind the eyes and showing no emotion, there would have been something else to say about it.
“I wish there was someone who could have been like, ‘Right, this is the proper balance of emotion that you should show. Don’t show this. Don’t show that. Just this amount’.”
One part that particularly affected Cynthia was when a YouTube “prankster” jumped the barrier at a Wicked: For Good screening, prompting the Prima Facie actor to spring into action to get herself and her friend away from the scene.
In the fall-out from this, she felt her “humanity” was “bastardised” online by people comparing her to Ariana’s “bodyguard”, something she has previously said was rooted in both racism and misogyny.
She lamented: “The idea that it’s OK to rip a person to shreds in that way when they’re doing something that’s a naturally human thing to do just felt crazy. I think that this particular moment went just too far.”
Earlier this year, Cynthia claimed that she and Ariana were “holding on by threads” while promoting Wicked and “really trying to take care of each other” throughout.
“It’s very interesting, watching what people’s perception is versus what the reality actually is,” she added to Variety. “[There were] lots of psychologists seated at home deciding who we were, what we were going through, what we were doing and why.”
At the height of it all, Cynthia also told BuzzFeed UK: “We’re still processing everything – and this tour has been a wonderful opportunity to talk about the experience of making it, and the experiences we had together, and the experience of coming out of it.
“So, yeah, we’ve definitely been emotional, because we’re still deeply connected to it. And I think we’ll always be connected to these roles, these women that we got to play, who I don’t think have completely left, or will ever leave, because they were such a large part of our lives.”
Read Cynthia Erivo’s full interview in The Guardian here.
