Cynthia Erivo has opened up about her whirlwind Wicked experience, including the public’s dissection of her friendship with Ariana Grande and not wanting to be defined by the role.
The actress and singer reflected on the movies in a wide-ranging interview with Variety, speaking broadly about the mammoth press tour that thrust her and Grande under an intense microscope during a globe-spanning promo blitz that lasted over a year.
A key moment Erivo discussed was the widespread jokes that she was a “bodyguard” for Grande, who played Glinda opposite her Elphaba. Those comments reached fever pitch last year, when Erivo intercepted a fan who shoved Grande at a Wicked premiere in Singapore.
“I think that we haven’t really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women,” Erivo said when asked about the “bodyguard” comments. “I’m sure people will read this and think, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, it’s not about that,’ but it is.” she said.
Ervio added that underneath the jokes was a more racially motivated reaction from fans.
“That’s 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. 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,” she said.
The actress explained that her reaction to the fan on the red carpet was warranted, since “nobody moved” when he first approached Grande and “he wouldn’t let go” of her co-star. “Everyone was terrified at that moment,” she recalled.
Australian Johnson Wen was charged and jailed for ambushing Grande on the carpet. A repeat offender, Wen had previously rushed the stage at Lady Gaga and The Weeknd concerts, and was banned from some arenas and stadiums as a result.
Erivo went on to say that the “bodyguard” comments were just one aspect of Wicked that left her and Grande “hanging on by threads” by the time the second film’s press tour was wrapping up, particularly as everyone pored over the pair’s relationship.
“[Everyone decided] who we were, what we were going through, what we were doing and why. I think that people didn’t really believe that we were actually friends,” Erivo said, adding that she and Grande still “text nearly every day”.
With all that scrutiny, it’s little surprise Erivo chose to scale back her Oscar campaign for the Wicked sequel — a move she said was partly the result of the “bodyguard” comments. “I just felt like my humanity had been bastardised,” she said.
“I felt like something I did instinctively [protecting Grande] 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.
“I just didn’t want to be a part of that, really and truly. I didn’t want to put myself through it. I didn’t feel like I deserved it,” she said.
All those experiences are perhaps why, during an interview game with Variety, Erivo chose not to deliver the Elphaba “Defying Gravity” riff when prompted to by a cue card.
“We’re really going to try and get [a line read] from Wicked, aren’t we?” she told the interviewer during a game where she guessed what movies her lines of dialogue were from.
“Do you mind if we do another question that isn’t about Wicked? Because I feel like I’ve spent the last two years talking about it, and I think we have the opportunity to start talking about something else,” Erivo said.
She did clarify that she “love[s] Wicked”, but said she’s been “talking about it ad nauseam” over the past two years.
#CynthiaErivo is done talking about #Wicked.
— Variety (@Variety) May 27, 2026
“Because I feel like I’ve spent the last two years talking about it, and I think that we have an opportunity to talk about something else,” she told Variety. “And I love ‘Wicked,’ but I’ve just talked about it ad nauseam.”
Watch the… pic.twitter.com/GiooIAfSDw
Wicked was a box office and pop cultural smash, earning both Erivo and Grande Oscar nominations and spawning countless viral moments.
Beyond the movie musical, Erivo is set to star opposite Viola Davis and Idris Elba in Children of Blood and Bone, an adaptation of the fantasy novel of the same name.
Lead images: Variety and X
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