Ariana Grande said the fan edits of the Wicked poster are “complicated,” after her co-star, Cynthia Erivo, called them “deeply hurtful.”
“I find AI so conflicting and troublesome sometimes,” she told Variety on Saturday during the 2024 Academy Museum Gala. “But I think it’s just kind of such a massive adjustment period.”
Grande was asked to weigh in on the recent poster edit controversy where a fan tweaked the “Wicked” poster, and Erivo felt the modification was disrespectful.
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posing the question ‘is your ***** green,’” Erivo wrote on her Instagram story Wednesday, alongside the fan-made poster. “None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”
Grande didn’t speak directly to whether or not she found the edit offensive herself and instead focused the conversation on the adjustment to artificial intelligence.
“This is something that’s bigger than us, and the fans are gonna have fun and make their edits,” she said.
When Variety suggested that sometimes things can “go too far,” Grande said, “I think so,” clarifying her support for her co-star. “And I have so much respect for my sister, Cynthia, and I love her so much.”
