Cynthia Erivo is calling out a fan-edited poster for Wicked that hides her face.
Earlier in the week, Universal Pictures released a poster for the Jon M. Chu-directed film that paid homage to the poster for the Broadway musical.
The poster for the Broadway production hides Elphaba’s eyes and has her wearing red lipstick with a smirk on her face. In the poster for the film, Erivo’s eyes are visible, and she trades the red lipstick for a green one.
“The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words we communicate with our eyes,” Erivo posted on her Instagram stories. “Our poster 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 continued, “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posting the question, ‘is your p*** green.’” None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”
In a second post on Instagram Stories, Erivo shared the official Wicked film poster and added, “Let me put this right here, to remind you and cleanse your palette.”
Cynthia Erivo on fans editing ‘Wicked’ film poster
Instagram @cynthiaerivo
Wicked will release on November 22 in the U.S. and the U.K. The musical film will be released in two parts, with the second part dropping on December 25, 2025. Wicked also stars Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Keala Settle and Peter Dinklage.