Cynthia Erivo says “my humanity had been bastardised” after Ariana Grande red-carpet incident backlash

Highlights:

• Cynthia Erivo addressed viral red-carpet incident
• Erivo and Ariana Grande said they were “terrified”
• Fan grabbed Grande during Singapore premiere event
• Erivo criticized “bodyguard” comments on social media
• Actress said backlash affected Oscar campaign interest

Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has spoken about the public reaction following an incident at the Singapore premiere of Wicked: For Good, where she intervened after a man rushed toward co-star Ariana Grande on the red carpet.

In an interview with Variety, Erivo said she and Grande were “terrified” during the incident.

The event took place at Universal Studios Singapore when Johnson Wen crossed a barrier and approached the actresses. Erivo stepped in after Wen grabbed Grande.

“Nobody moved. Nobody moved. So I moved because my brain went, ‘Get him away! Get him out of here!’ … And what people couldn’t see is that he wouldn’t let go [of Grande]. He wouldn’t let go. So I just kept pushing at him to get him off,” Erivo said.

She added that personal boundaries still matter, even for public figures.

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“A stranger is a stranger. Personal space is still personal space. It doesn’t belong to anyone, even if you feel you know the person,” she says. “In that moment, we were all terrified.”

Wen, who reportedly has a history of disrupting public events, was later sentenced to nine days in jail.

Following the incident, social media users widely discussed Erivo’s actions. Some people described her as Grande’s “bodyguard,” a characterization Erivo strongly criticized.

According to Erivo, many of the comments reflected harmful assumptions about Black women.

“I think that we haven’t really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women. And I’m sure people will read this and think, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, it’s not about that.’ But it is. Because 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. And 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. I would hazard a guess that it would not have been the same had it been the other way around.”

Erivo also said the reaction deeply affected her emotionally and changed how she viewed awards campaigning for Wicked: For Good.

The first Wicked film earned $765 million worldwide after its 2024 release and won two Academy Awards. However, the sequel performed less strongly at the box office, earning $541 million worldwide and receiving no Oscar nominations.

Speaking about the emotional impact of the online reaction, Erivo said, “I just felt like my humanity had been bastardised.”

She explained that the experience made her reluctant to participate in awards campaigning.

“It felt like something I did instinctively 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, and 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.”