Cynthia Erivo is reflecting on a fan-made Wicked poster she put on blast on social media, saying the edit degraded her.
During the 2024 CFDA Fashion Awards, Erivo was asked about her outburst on Instagram and said she should’ve called her friends instead.
“I’m passionate about it and I know the fans are passionate about it and I think for me it was just like a human moment of wanting to protect little Elphaba, and it was like a human moment,” Erivo told Entertainment Tonight. “I probably should have called my friends, but it’s fine.”
On October 16, Erivo took to social media to blast a fan-created Wicked poster that paid homage to the Broadway musical poster.
The poster for the Broadway production hides Elphaba’s eyes and has her wearing red lipstick with a smirk on her face. In the poster for the film, Erivo’s eyes are visible, and she trades the red lipstick for a green one.
“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,” Erivo posted on her Instagram stories. “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 continued, “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posting the question, ‘is your p*** green.’” None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”
Cynthia Erivo on fans editing ‘Wicked’ film poster
Instagram @cynthiaerivo
‘Wicked’ film key art with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande (L); ‘Wicked’ Broadway musical key art (R)
Universal Pictures