Oscar-Nominated Star Admits Attack Devastated Her Sense of Humanity
Cynthia Erivo has admitted that the attack in Singapore when promoting Wicked: For Good left a long-lasting impact on her.
The Tony Award-winning British actress and singer said in an interview with Variety that the experience during the press tour forced her to hold back from campaigning during that award season.
She admitted to the outlet that defending her co-star, Ariana Grande, against a man who vaulted over a barrier during a red-carpet appearance at Universal Studios Singapore in November 2025 made her want to scale back her promotion of the musical sequel.
The Harriet actress sprang into action when an internet personality known as Pyjama Man charged towards the pop star. "Nobody moved. Nobody moved," Erivo said in the interview about the moment the man ran at Ariana.
"So I moved because my brain went, ‘Get him away! Get him out of here!' My immediate reaction was ‘Get him away from us.' 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."
It wasn't just the incident which upset the 39-year-old Cynthia, it was the aftermath and the way people were calling her a bodyguard. Erivo recalls being presented with "insidious" memes and TikTok videos aimed at her physique and "the fact that I was bald; it was about what I looked like," she said, along with the "assumption that I was bigger than my co-star and so I had to be controlling or protecting, and that was my role."
"I just felt like my humanity had been bastardized," added the former Tony Awards host. "I 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."
The public's response to the incident made her shy away from the FYC season, which sees stars travel the world promoting their film and talents in the hopes of earning an Academy Award nomination. "I didn't want to put myself through it," she said.
"I didn't feel like I deserved it. It didn't help," Erivo continued, adding that "it felt like there was already a sort of upturned nose at the second installment, even though we all knew there was a second film coming and we were just doing our jobs." The sequel to Wicked was met with lukewarm reviews and ultimately earned 0 Oscar nominations in contrast to the first, which had 10 nominations, including for Erivo and Grande.
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This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 12:47 PM.