My humanity had been bastardised by what people saw, not what I did
Erivo intervened when an intruder grabbed Grande at Singapore premiere; social media mocked her as a 'bodyguard' based on her physique and appearance. Erivo attributes the backlash to 'insidious' racial bias in how Black women are perceived, saying her instinctive protective action was reframed through racist assumptions.
- Johnson Wen jumped a barrier at Universal Studios Singapore and grabbed Ariana Grande; Erivo intervened and was later mocked as a 'bodyguard' on social media
- Wen was sentenced to nine days in jail
- Wicked: For Good earned $541 million worldwide and received zero Oscar nominations, compared to the first film's $765 million and two wins
- Erivo withdrew from Oscar campaign for the sequel due to the racist backlash
Wicked star Cynthia Erivo says social media reactions to her protecting Ariana Grande from a red-carpet invader revealed racist stereotyping, with commenters suggesting she was a bodyguard based on her appearance.
At the Singapore premiere of Wicked: For Good, a man named Johnson Wen vaulted a barrier and rushed toward Ariana Grande on the red carpet. In the seconds that followed, Cynthia Erivo moved. She pushed at him repeatedly, trying to force him away from her co-star, who was being held by someone she had never met. Both women were frightened. Wen, who has a pattern of disrupting public events, was later sentenced to nine days in jail. The incident itself lasted only moments. What came after lasted much longer.
On social media, the response to Erivo's intervention took a shape that surprised and wounded her. People called her Grande's bodyguard. They made jokes about her appearance—her physique, her shaved head, the way her body looked compared to her co-star's. The implication, Erivo would later explain, was that she must have been there to protect, to control, to serve. Not a fellow actor. Not a woman defending another woman from a stranger's unwanted touch. A bodyguard.
In an interview with Variety, Erivo unpacked what she saw beneath those jokes. She described the moment itself first: the terror, the fact that Wen wouldn't release Grande, the instinctive decision to keep pushing until he let go. "Nobody moved," Erivo said. "Nobody moved. So I moved." But the social media commentary that followed revealed something else entirely—a way of seeing Black women that Erivo called insidious. "I think that we haven't really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women," she said. The assumptions were automatic: because of how she looked, because of her shape and her appearance, she could not have been an equal on that red carpet. She had to be something else. Something smaller.
Erivo was clear about what had happened to her in the aftermath. "I just felt like my humanity had been bastardised," she said. An instinctive act—a person protecting another person from physical contact they did not consent to—had been reframed through a lens of racial stereotype. The incident had cost her something beyond the moment itself. She decided not to campaign for the Wicked sequel during awards season. She didn't want to put herself through it. She didn't feel like she deserved it.
The film itself had already underperformed. The first Wicked movie, released in 2024, earned $765 million worldwide and won two Oscars. The sequel took in $541 million and received no Oscar nominations. Erivo's withdrawal from the campaign was one more consequence of an incident that lasted seconds but whose ripples extended far beyond the red carpet. What had been a moment of physical intervention—one woman helping another—had become, in the retelling, something that said more about how the world sees Black women than it said about what actually happened that night.
Notable Quotes
Nobody moved. Nobody moved. So I moved because my brain went, 'Get him away! Get him out of here!' And what people couldn't see is that he wouldn't let go of Grande. He wouldn't let go.— Cynthia Erivo, describing the red-carpet incident
I think that we haven't really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women. It was my physique; it was my shape; it was the fact that I was bald; it was about what I looked like.— Cynthia Erivo, on social media reactions to the incident
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you say your humanity was bastardised, what do you mean by that exactly?
It means someone took something I did instinctively—something that came from a place of genuine concern for another person—and they rewrote it. They made it fit a story about what I am, not what I did.
And that story was about being a bodyguard.
Yes. But it wasn't really about the job title. It was about the assumption that I couldn't be an equal. That my body, my appearance, meant I belonged in a supporting role. That's the insidious part—it's not always said out loud.
Did you feel like you had to defend yourself?
I didn't want to. I wanted to move forward. But staying silent felt like accepting their version of what happened. So I spoke about it, but speaking about it also meant reliving it.
And that's why you stepped back from the Oscar campaign.
I couldn't separate myself from the noise. Every time I would have gone out to talk about the film, I would have been carrying that with me. I didn't want to be a symbol of something I didn't do.
Do you think people understood what you were actually trying to say?
Some did. But understanding requires people to look at themselves first, and that's harder than making a joke.