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‘I felt my humanity was bastardised’: Cynthia Erivo says reaction to Ariana Grande red carpet incident rooted in racism

World news | The Guardian·Andrew Pulver·3 days ago
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Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has said that reactions to the incident at the Singapore premiere of Wicked: For Good, in which she stepped in to fend off a red-carpet invader who grabbed co-star Ariana Grande, revealed “the insidious nature of how we view Black women” and put her off campaigning for Oscars. In an interview with Variety , Erivo said that she and Grande were “terrified” when Johnson Wen jumped a barrier at Universal Studios Singapore and rushed towards them. “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. So I just kept pushing at him to get him off.” Erivo added: “A stranger is a stranger. Personal space is still personal space. It doesn’t belong to anyone, even if you feel you know the person,” she says. “In that moment, we were all terrified.” Wen, who has a history of disrupting public events, was sentenced to nine days in jail.…

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