“I didn’t want to put myself through it,” the award-winning actress said of continuing with her Oscar campaign
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NEED TO KNOW
- Cynthia Erivo has revealed what made her pull back from campaigning for an Oscar for Wicked: For Good
- The British actress and singer cited the “insidious” criticism she received after defending her costar Ariana Grande in Singapore
- “I just felt like my humanity had been bastardized,” Erivo said
Cynthia Erivo is opening up about why she decided to pull back from campaigning for an Oscar for Wicked: For Good.
The Tony Award-winning British actress and singer, 39, said her decision was affected by the harsh aftermath of the Singapore attack she and costar Ariana Grande experienced during the Singapore stop of their press tour for the sequel in an interview with Variety published Wednesday, May 27.
When asked if her defending Grande from a man who vaulted over a barrier during a red carpet appearance at Universal Studios Singapore in November 2025 had anything to do with her decision to scale back, she said, “I think maybe in a way it did, actually.”
Credit: Aimee Rose McGhee/Dave Benett/WireImage
At the time, Erivo was walking a decorative yellow brick road with the 32-year-old Grammy winner, Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum, when a man later identified as Johnson Wen, who goes by Pyjama Man, charged towards Grande.
The Harriet star immediately sprang into action, crossing over Yeoh to shield Grande from the individual as security guards also intervened.
“Nobody moved. Nobody moved,” Erivo told the outlet. “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.”
Afterward, Erivo recalled being hit with "insidious" memes and TikTok videos aimed at her physique and "the fact that I was bald; it was about what I looked like," said the actress, 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,” Erivo told Variety. “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.”
“I didn't want to put myself through it,” she said of putting herself through the awards season gauntlet.
“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.”
Credit: Ian West/PA Images via Getty
And while Erivo noted Wicked “took over everything,” she added that it “beautifully — changed my life.”
“We were holding on by threads,” Erivo said of her and Grande's last four years working together for the two installments, “and we were really trying to take care of each other.”
Erivo also addressed those who doubted the authenticity of her friendship with Grande.
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“It's very interesting, watching what people's perception is versus what the reality actually is,” she said. “Lots of psychologists seated at home deciding who we were, what we were going through, what we were doing and why.”
Post-Wicked, Erivo said the pair are still as close as ever, even texting each other almost daily.
“I think that people didn't really believe that we were actually friends,” she said. “But that's also because people don't know me very well. If I'm a friend, then I'm a friend. If I'm not, then I'm not.”
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