Cynthia Erivo Slams ViralWickedMovie Poster Edited to Hide Her Face as 'Offensive' and 'Hurtful': 'It Degrades Me'

Mar. 15, 2025

Cynthia Erivo and poster for ‘Wicked’.Photo:Marc Piasecki/WireImage; Universal Studios

Marc Piasecki/WireImage; Universal Studios

Cynthia Erivois unhappy withWickedfans who edited the movie’s official poster to partially hide her face.

“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,’ " Erivo wrote in a caption to her post. “None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”

“The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION,” she added. “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.”

Cynthia Erivo’s Instagram Stories, Oct. 16, 2024.cynthiaerivo/Instagram

cynthiaerivo/Instagram

Erivo additionally shared in her post that the movie’s poster “is an homage not an imitation” of the original Broadway show’s poster. “To edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me,” she wrote. “And that is just deeply hurtful.”

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The actress then re-shared the movie’s official and unedited poster on herStories, writing in a follow-up post: “Let me put this right here, to remind you and cleanse your palette.”

Poster for the Broadway production of ‘Wicked’.Playbill

Playbill

In the upcomingtwo-part adaptationofWicked, Erivo costars withAriana Grande, who portrays Glinda, as well asMichelle Yeoh,Jonathan Bailey,Jeff Goldblum,Bowen Yang,Keala SettleandEthan Slater.

“We get the camera two inches from their face, so we can see when they’re lying, when they’re not, or when they’re lying to themselves,” Chu said at the time. “That brings a lot of power to the show that you can’t have on a stage when you have to look forward to the back of the crowd.”

Wicked: Part Oneis in theaters Nov. 27. Themovie’s second partis slated for Nov. 26, 2025.

source: people.com