Cynthia Erivo Calls Edited ‘Wicked’ Poster ‘Deeply Hurtful’—See Her Viral Response

After tickets for the movie version of Wicked went on sale, its producers celebrated by releasing a new Playbill cover for the Wicked musical. Fans, however, were quick to notice that a few minor details were missing from the new design. This caused several random TikTok creators to take a stab at editing it using AI to make it look more like the original. But by doing so, they covered up most of Wicked star Cynthia Erivo’s character Elphaba’s face. And while many online viewers loved the new design, Erivo did not. Read her message below. 

Cynthia Erivo’s thoughts on the ‘Wicked’ poster 

In the original design featured on every Playbill, Glinda is seen whispering into a smirking Elphaba’s ear. Most of Elphaba’s face—except her mouth and nose— is covered by her hat, whereas the entire right side of Glinda’s face is shown. 

In the new design, however, both of the witches' faces are shown, which many people online were not happy about. They then took it upon themselves to crop Elphaba’s hat on the movie poster so it covered up the majority of Erivo's face, including her eyes. They also changed her lip color from green to red. The only change that was made to Glinda (played by Ariana Grande), though, was that her hand was most slightly upward. 

Erivo herself was not happy about the edit, writing on her Instagram story above a picture of the edited poster, “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posing the question ‘is your ***** green.’ None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”

“The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real-life human being who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer...because, without words, we communicate with our eyes. Our poster is an homage, not an imitation. To edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.” 

She then posted another slide featuring the unedited version of the picture and wrote, “Let me put this right here to remind you and cleanse your palette.” 

You can see both of Erivo’s posts and a side-by-side of the edited and unedited posters below! 

Cynthia Erivo in ‘Wicked’

Aside from the poster, Erivo has had nothing but great things to say about her time in Oz.

She even gushed about her time on the film set by writing, “This moment, this film, these people, this cast, this crew, this director, my Glinda, were the grandest gift I could ever have asked for, and I am eternally grateful for the chance to bring you This Elphie. I am endlessly grateful to play a role that turns the notion of what beauty is on its head. I am endlessly grateful to be working with some of the most beautiful souls on the planet. I hope when you meet her, you’ll love her as much and as fiercely as I do.”

Wicked is expected to hit theaters on November 22, and tickets are on sale now. 

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