Ariana Grande Weighs in on Fan Edited ‘Wicked’ Posters and AI Meme

Ariana Grande is weighing in on her “Wicked” co-star Cynthia Erivo’s recent slam of fan edited “Wicked” posters and AI-generated memes.

A poster released by Universal was tweaked by a fan to mimic the original Broadway poster by lowering Elphaba’s witch hat to cover Erivo’s eyes. A meme that went viral earlier this week showed Glinda whispering into Elphaba’s ear with the caption reading, “Is your pussy green?”

“I think it’s very complicated because I find AI so conflicting and troublesome sometimes, but I think it’s just kind of such a massive adjustment period,” Grande told me exclusively at the Academy Museum Gala Saturday in Los Angeles. “This is something that is such so much bigger than us and the fans are gonna have fun and make their edits.”

Ariana Grande at the Fourth Annual Academy Museum Gala held at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on October 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Gilbert Flores

When I suggested that sometimes things can go “too far,” Grande said, “I think so. 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.”

Cynthia blasted the fan-edited poster and meme on Wednesday in an Instagram story. “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 p—- green?” Erivo wrote while sharing one of the photoshopped “Wicked” posters with her face covered. “None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”