Cynthia Erivo expects a long, healthy career on stage and screen and anticipates continued public attention. During the Wicked: For Good press tour in Singapore, a man lunged at Ariana Grande outside a venue, and Erivo was seen physically pushing him away. Online commentary framed Erivo as a “bodyguard,” which she questioned. She said the reactions reflect the insidious ways Black women are viewed and that the issue is racial. She described how online mockery targeted her physique, shape, and baldness, leading to assumptions that she was controlling or protective. She said the attack and online response made her feel her humanity was distorted, which held her back from fully campaigning for an Oscar.
"“I think that we haven't really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women,” Erivo said. “And I'm sure people will read this and think, Oh, for goodness' sake, it's not about that. But it is.”"
"“That's what was being made fun of. It was my physique; it was my shape; it was the fact that I was bald; it was about what I looked like,” Erivo said. “And because of that, there was this assumption that I was bigger than my co-star and so I had to be controlling or protecting, and that was my role. I would hazard a guess that it would not have been the same had it been the other way around.”"
"“I just felt like my humanity had been bastardized,” Erivo said. “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”"
Read at Vulture
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]