‘I thought my personality was disgusting’: Cynthia Erivo says Ariana Grande’s red carpet reaction was racist | Video

Evil star Cynthia Erivo has revealed what happened at the premiere of Evil: For Good, in Singapore. stepped in to protect the red carpet villain who grabbed Ariana Grande’s friend, exposed “the negative nature of how we view black women” and left her campaigning for the Oscars.

In an interview with VarietyErivo said he and Grande were “scared” when Johnson Wen jumped a barrier at Universal Studios Singapore and ran towards them. “No one moved, no one moved, so I moved because my brain started saying, ‘Get rid of him! … And what people couldn’t see was that he wouldn’t let go (of Grande). He wouldn’t let go. Then I just forced him to get rid of him.”

Erivo added: “A stranger is a stranger. At this point, we were all scared.” Wen, who has a history of disrupting public events, was sentenced to nine days in jail.

The incident sparked a backlash on social media, including suggestions that Erivo was Grande’s “bodyguard” – something Erivo denies. “I think we haven’t acknowledged the subtle ways in which we view black women.” And I believe that people will read this and think, ‘Oh, for the good of it, it’s not like that. But it is. Because that’s what was being laughed at. It was my body; it was my appearance; it was that I was bald; it was about how I looked. And because of that, there was this idea that I was bigger than my fellow stars and so I had to control or protect, and that was my responsibility. I just thought it wouldn’t be the same if it was the other way around.”

First of all The bad guy the film took $765m (£571m) in worldwide box office receipts when it was released in 2024 and won two Oscars; the sequel fared worse, taking in $541m (£404m), and received no Oscar nominations.

“I just felt like my personality was compromised,” Erivo said, not wanting to campaign for the Oscars. Bad: Good because of what happened on the red carpet. “It felt like what I did naturally was made into something that wasn’t because of how people looked at women who looked like me, but because of the stereotypes that were created, and I didn’t want to be a part of it, really and truly.

I didn’t want to put up with myself because I felt like I was worthless.