Fans Say 'It's Not That Deep' After Cynthia Erivo Addresses 'Wildest, Most Offensive' 'Wicked' Poster Edit

Cynthia Erivo is condemning a fan-edited version of the promotional poster released for the film adaptation of the musical Wicked, but some fans think she’s “overreacting.”

The actress and singer took to her Instagram Stories, as seen in screenshots shared on X by Pop Crave, to address a Photoshopped version of the official poster where someone had tweaked her and co-star Ariana Grande’s poses to more closely match the poster for the Broadway musical. 

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In the original illustration from 2003, Elphaba smirked in a forward-facing position with the brim of her hat tugged down to cover her eyes while Glinda leaned in to whisper in her ear with one hand covering her mouth. In the film version’s photograph, the two maintained similar positions, but Elphaba’s hat sat above her eyes and Grande’s hand rested more toward her chin. 

Upon seeing the edit, Eriva proclaimed, “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?’”

“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us,” she continued. “The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being, who chose to to [sic] look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer …because, without words we communicate with our eyes.”

“Our postage 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 concluded.

“Let me put this right here, to remind you and cleanse your palette,” she followed up with a pair of green heart emojis as she shared the actual film poster, but some fans feel the reaction was a little much, with one reply on X reading, “It’s not that deep?😭😭😭.”

“It isn’t even that serious!” another agreed. “Especially because the original poster does exist. They didn’t just hide her face to hide it.”

“People are trying to mimic the old cover of this, with her eyes being covered. People are not just doing this because they hate Cynthia or anything,” someone else said. “They are paying homage to the original, and she is overreacting b|c of it.”

Others sided with Erivo, though, with one clapping back, “It is [that serious] if you are the leading actress in the film and they edit out YOUR FACE. On the edited version your eyes go to Ariana, not Cynthia. It’s insulting.”

Next: Fans Are Enchanted by “First Look” at the “Wicked” Build-A-Bear Collab