Cynthia Erivo criticizes fan edit of “Wicked” poster as “offensive”

“Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo criticized a fan edit of the film’s poster on Wednesday, calling it “deeply hurtful.”

On Tuesday, a TikTok user under the name Ferlozar posted a video with the text “Fixing the Wicked” accompanying the film’s poster and the caption “much better.” The footage itself showed the user using Photoshop tools to make the Universal movie poster more similar to the original poster used for the musical’s Playbills.

The poster’s main edit was to hide Erivo’s eyes and much of her face to better mimic the Broadway poster. Her lips are cut red and her eyes are hidden under the brim of her hat. Notably, the video contains no editing of Grande’s outfit or hair, which is all white in the original poster.

The fan edit quickly went viral, racking up nearly seven million views on TikTok as of this writing. A separate fan account reposted the finished product on Instagram, and that’s where Erivo took notice.

“This is the wildest and most offensive thing I have ever seen, comparable to that terrible Ai [sic] of us fighting is tantamount to people asking the question, “Is your ass green?” Erivo wrote in a post to her story. “None of this is funny. None of it is sweet. It humiliates me. It demeans us.”

She further noted that the original poster wasn’t even based on real actors, but was always just an illustration, and explained why the poster for the “Wicked” movie intentionally featured Elphaba’s face.

“I am a real human being who has chosen to look directly through the camera at you, the viewer… because without words, we communicate with our eyes,” she said.

“Our poster is a homage, not an imitation. To edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that’s just deeply hurtful.”

As of this writing, Erivo’s co-star Ariana Grande had not publicly commented on the new poster.

Check out the official version of the Wicked poster below.

“Wicked” hits theaters on November 22nd.