Cynthia Erivo on Protecting Ariana Grande From Man Who Grabbed Her on ‘Wicked: For Good’ Red Carpet: ‘I Just Wanted to Make Sure My Friend Was Safe’

The “Wicked: For Good” press tour has been a whirlwind (Ariana Grande recently tested positive for COVID, for instance), but no moment made more headlines than when a man jumped over a barricade and ran onto the film’s red carpet in Singapore. He rushed Grande and tried to grab her. Cynthia Erivo went viral for jumping in to protect her co-star and fend off the man as he put his arm around Grande.

“I wasn’t really thinking,” Erivo said during a recent interview on “Today,” which marked her first time directly addressing the incident. “I just wanted to make sure my friend was safe. I’m sure he didn’t mean us harm, but you never know with those things. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. That was my first instinct.”

Johnson Wen, a 26-year-old from Australia, was found guilty of being a public nuisance in a Singapore court a few days after the incident occurred. He has since been sentenced to nine days in prison. According to local media, Wen pleaded guilty to the incident. The court heard that Wen attempted to intrude on the red carpet twice — once when he charged at Grande and another time after he was escorted out by security. Wen told the judge that he would “not do it again.”

During the press stops that followed the “Wicked: For Good” premiere in Singapore, neither Erivo nor Grande directly addressed the incident. Erivo seemed to allude to it during a screening in Los Angeles when she said: “We have come through some shit… I mean, fuck, even this last week, let’s be honest.”

“Wicked: For Good” is now playing in theaters nationwide from Universal Pictures. Watch Erivo’s full interview on “Today” in the video below.