Cynthia Erivo Speaks Out on Fan-Edited ‘Wicked’ Poster: “This Is Just Deeply Hurtful”
Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has called out a fan-made movie poster for the highly anticipated movie musical from Universal Pictures as “deeply hurtful.”
The altered version of the official Universal poster hides Erivo’s eyes and much of her face to get closer to the original animated Broadway poster, where her character’s eyes were obscured by a wide-brimmed hat.
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“The original poster is an illustration. I am a real life human being, whose chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer … because without words we communicate with our eyes,” Eviro, who plays Elphaba in Wicked, stated on her Instagram Story and X pages.
The Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated actress portrays Elphaba (who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West) in the upcoming movie musical, while co-star Ariana Grande, the Grammy-winning and SAG Award-nominated actress, plays Glinda (who becomes the Good Witch).
“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,” Erivo added on her social media page. She left no doubt that she was deeply offended by the faked movie poster.
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equality to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people post the question ‘is your ***** green’ None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us,” Erivo argued.
She and Grande star topline Jon M. Chu‘s adaptation of the Tony-winning musical Wicked, hitting theaters Nov. 22. Universal Pictures directed The Hollywood Reporter to Erivo’s Instagram Story post when asked for comment.
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