Wicked

Ariana Grande is weighing in on the Wicked memes after Cynthia Erivo called certain AI-generated videos and fan-made edits “offensive” and “deeply hurtful.”
While speaking to Variety on the Academy Museum Gala red carpet Saturday (Oct. 19), the pop star said that she thinks the situation is “very complicated.” “I find AI so conflicting and troublesome sometimes, but I think it’s just kind of such a massive adjustment period,” she continued. “This is something that is so much bigger than us, and the fans are gonna have fun and make their edits.”

“I think so,” Grande responded when asked whether fans sometimes go “too far” with their edits. “And I have so much respect for my sister, Cynthia, and I love her so much. It’s just a big adjustment period. It’s so much stimulation about something that’s so much bigger than us.”

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The R.E.M. Beauty founder’s comments come three days after Erivo made headlines for slamming one fan’s Wicked edit, for which they’d photoshopped the upcoming film’s poster to look more like the original poster for the Wicked Broadway musical. “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen,” the Pinocchio star wrote at the time. “Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me.”

Erivo went on to say that the altered poster was “equal to that awful Ai of us fighting” — referring to a viral AI-generated video that animated a fight between the Emmy winner and “Yes, And?” singer using their likenesses on the same movie poster — and “equal to” a long-running, vulgar joke in the Wicked community. 

“None of this is funny,” she’d added. “None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”

The premiere of the first of two Wicked films is set for Nov. 22, featuring Erivo as Elphaba and Grande as Glinda. Directed by Jon M. Chu, the duology will also star Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Ethan Slater and Bowen Yang.

The project’s soundtrack — which also arrives Nov. 22 — will showcase the live vocals Erivo and Grande performed on set. While speaking to Variety, the “We Can’t Be Friends” artist confirmed that she’d “absolutely” love to work with her fellow-leading lady on more music beyond the films, saying, “I think we are stuck with each other, professionally and personally for the rest of our lives.” 

Watch Grande share her thoughts on the Wicked meme situation below.

Ariana Grande on artificial intelligence and the #Wicked poster that Cynthia Erivo criticized: “It’s very complicated, because I find AI so conflicting and troublesome sometimes, but I think it’s such a massive adjustment period…I have so much respect for my sister Cynthia, and… pic.twitter.com/J2YnHxfQ9w— Variety (@Variety) October 20, 2024

Cynthia Erivo has seen the internet’s Wicked memes, and she’s not a fan.
On Wednesday (Oct. 16), the singer-actress blasted a few of the viral edits of the upcoming film’s new poster, which finds Erivo staring at the camera as costar Ariana Grande whispers in her ear in a reimagining of the original Broadway poster for the Wicked musical. When the new poster dropped earlier this month, however, some fans were unhappy that it wasn’t a more exact recreation, which led to people editing the new poster so that it looked more akin to the original — but Erivo isn’t letting it fly.

“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen,” said the artist — whose album Ch. 1 Vs. 1 peaked at No 77 on the Top Album Sales chart in 2021 — sharing one of the edits on her Instagram Story. “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.”

“Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me,” she continued. “And that is just deeply hurtful.”

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Erivo added that the edited posters were “equal to that awful Ai of us fighting” — referring to a viral AI-generated video that animates a fight between the EGOT winner and “Yes, And?” singer using their likenesses on the movie poster — and “equal to” a past meme joking about the color of her famously green-skinned character’s private parts. “None of this is funny,” she wrote. “None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”

The Pinocchio star plays Elphaba — aka the Wicked Witch of the West — in the upcoming film duology, the first installment of which hits theaters Nov. 22. Grande is locked in as Glinda the Good Witch, with Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, Bowen Yang and Ethan Slater rounding out the cast.

After saying her piece on the edits, Erivo shared the Wicked movie’s actual poster on her Story to “cleanse your palette,” she told viewers. About three hours later, Grande also shared the poster on her own Story.

See the official artwork below.