Cynthia Erivo is standing up for her co-star.
The “Wicked” actress, 37, was asked about Ariana Grande’s comments on being bullied online while at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival and didn’t hold back with her response.
“I think cyberbullying is quite dangerous, to be honest, because it’s easy to be behind the computer and type words about a person you don’t know anything about,” Erivo said, per Deadline on Friday. “I think that the more we can protect ourselves from that the better.”
“The best way to support someone who is going through that is really to be a counterpoint to whatever is coming at that person,” the “Harriet” star continued. “Be the person who tells the positive. What a person who has never met you [thinks] is never more important than what you think of yourself.”
On Thursday, Grande, 31, spoke candidly about how she has tuned out the online criticism over the years to prioritize her own well-being.
“I’ve been doing this in front of the public and kind of been a specimen in a petri dish since I was 16 or 17,” the singer said on Thursday’s episode of the “Oui Oui Baguette” web series. “So, I have heard it all. I’ve heard every version of it of what’s wrong with me. And then you fix it, and then, it’s wrong for different reasons.”
Grande added, “It’s something that is uncomfortable no matter what scale you’re experiencing it on. Even if you go to Thanksgiving dinner and someone’s granny says, ‘Oh, my God, you look skinnier, what happened?’ or ‘You look heavier, what happened?’ That is something that is uncomfortable and horrible no matter where it’s happening. There’s a comfortability that people have commenting on that I think is really dangerous.”
Erivo and Grande have garnered major buzz over the past month as they star as witches Elphaba and Glinda in the two-part film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical “Wicked.”
Elphaba has green skin, which Erivo said represents “every person who feels othered” in society.
“Elphaba is a challenging character because you want to make sure people see her vulnerability and humanity,” she reiterated at the Red Sea Film Festival. “You can be distracted by the green. You have to come past that so people can see her as a person, the pain in her eyes and the hurt she feels in her heart. With Elphaba, I had this beautiful challenge of humanizing her and even the green she lives with.”
Grande was also vocal about setting boundaries for herself and shared an intimate moment with Drew Barrymore while on the latter’s talk show Thursday.
“I admire you so much because I know how hard you do work to learn and to take care of yourself and to grow,” the Nickelodeon alum told Barrymore, 49. “And I know how young you started. And I don’t know too much about what your relationship has been to this industry the whole time, but I do know what you have shared publicly about it and I just have to say it can be ugly sometimes and your strength and your heart and who you are, the light that you bring, and your ability to dance in the rain and preserve that childlike wonder is such a gift.”
When Grande’s voice began to crack, the “Charlie’s Angels” star embraced her as they both teared up.
Erivo also went on Barrymore’s show, where she spoke to the “Santa Clarita Diet” alum about her physical connection with Grande.
“Sometimes you can’t say anything and you’re in a room … it’s just like a squeeze of a hand and that’s sometimes how she and I communicate,” she said. “We might be talking to someone or I might need to, like, communicate something to her. It’s just a squeeze of the hand or just a pinch of a finger, you know, or a hug. … However we need to communicate, it is how we need to communicate.”
