Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has furiously slammed a fan edit of one of the film’s posters as ‘deeply hurtful’ and ‘degrading’.
The new movie, which drops next month, is a film adaptation of the smash hit Broadway play of the same name and acts as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz.
Erivo stars as Elphaba, who goes on to menace Dorothy as the Wicked Witch of the West.
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She appears alongside Ariana Grande as Glinda the good witch, with Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard.
We’re getting the story in two parts - with the second due in November 2025.
Now fans have taken a break from dragging Ariana about her accent in the movie - which seems to have stuck after filming wrapped - to controversially edit one the film’s posters.
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Even if you haven’t seen the Broadway musical you’ll likely be familiar with the image we’re talking about - Elphaba smirking with the brim of her hat pulled over her eyes, while Glinda whispers into her ear.
Well, Universal Studios decided to do their own version for the movie - only this time Erivo’s Elphaba is staring the viewer down, with the brim of her hat noticeably higher.
This - for some reason - seemed to upset fans of the musical - who took to Photoshop to ‘fix’ the poster.
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This involved hiding Erivo’s face back under her hat and adding red lipstick.
Others also created an AI video of Erivo and Grande’s characters getting into a scrap.
Some people just have too much time on their hands, don’t they?
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Erivo has - understandably - not taken too kindly to this, and shared a brutal message to everyone who edited the poster on her Instagram Story.
She wrote: “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posing the question ‘is your ***** green’.
“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us. The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being, who chose to to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words we communicate with our eyes.
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“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.”
The fans who hadn’t tried their hand at Photoshop came out to back Erivo, with one writing: “All of you supposed ‘Wicked fans’ should be f**king ashamed of yourselves.
“I don't care how much you love the original poster. For a show that’s all about prejudice and the color of a young woman's skin the racism couldn't be any clearer. You do not deserve this film.”
Another said: “If I see one more tweet saying ‘she’s doing too much’ ‘it’s just a poster’… they paid homage to the Broadway poster but that doesn’t give YOU the right to edit her face from the poster.
“You can tell she’s deeply hurt by this and if you can’t see that - then you’re the issue.”
Wicked hits cinemas in the US on November 22.
Topics: Ariana Grande, Celebrity, Film and TV, Cynthia Erivo
Simon Fearn