Cynthia Erivo Rails Against the 'Wildest, Most Offensive' Viral 'WICKED' Poster Edit: 'None of This is Funny'
'Wicked' star Cynthia Erivo reacted to what she called the "wildest, most offensive" thing she's seen — a viral fan-edited version of the film's poster concealing her eyes and face.
The image is captured from a "Fixing the Wicked movie poster" TikTok, posted Tuesday with the caption, "much better."
In the video, @Ferlozar performed a series of edits on the Universal Pictures' promotional image to reveal a version closer to the 2003 Broadway musical poster. Erivo's eyes and the upper part of her face are shaded until they disappear under the brim of the character's hat, and her lips are changed from green to red, before they're widened into a smile.
Erivo posted a screenshot of the edited image on her Instagram Story Wednesday. "This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have ever seen," she says, comparing it to recent viral trends that include AI-altered images, and commenters asking, "'is your ***** green.'"
"None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us," Erivo wrote.
She goes on to explain, "The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being..."
"Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me," she said. "And that is just deeply hurtful."
While the TikTok edit extensively altered Erivo's appearance, no edits are made to Grande, whose crown and exposed skin differ notably from the illustrated poster's depiction of Glinda shrouded in white.
Erivo followed her condemnation of the edits with a shot of the film's poster untouched by fan edits, "Let me put this right here, to remind you and cleanse your palette 💚💚."
'Wicked' debuts in theaters Nov. 22, 2024.
