The ‘Wicked’ Pay Gap Fake News Debunked: Behind the Curtain About What Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Made

The movie “Wicked” is breaking box office records, and a sequel is already planned. Fake news reports went viral that Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda, earned 15 times more than her co-star Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, protagonist in the 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” by Gregory Maguire. (L-R) Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, photo via Universal Pictures Here’s How The News Spread Turns out the information was false, stemming from a Showbiz Galore article from February listing salaries for the film. But other media outlets regurgitated the information as the film hit theaters last weekend. And Universal Pictures was compelled to make it known that the two actors received equal pay. The pay gap between Black actors and their white counterparts was a major debate after Taraji P. Henson cried over the issue during media interview for “The Color Purple” last December. The issues was debated over its merit and several Black actresses, from Jada Pinkett Smith to Gabrielle Union, claimed to have been victims of unfair pay in Hollywood. With this in mind, Universal seemed to left with no choice but to publicly address the Erivo-Grande pay issue as...