The Tragic Details Of Cynthia Erivo's Life

Cynthia Erivo is a multitalented performer who has excelled in acting, producing, and of course, singing. There is no denying the power of her performances, many of which have earned her the highest accolades in the business. As of February 2025, Erivo is just an Oscar away from achieving EGOT status, having won a Tony, a Grammy, and a Daytime Emmy for her work in "The Color Purple." As of this writing, she's been nominated for two Academy Awards: She received her first nom for her portrayal of Harriet Tubman in 2022's "Harriet," and in 2025 she was nominated again for best actress thanks to her stunning work as Elphaba in the blockbuster hit "Wicked."

But Cynthia Erivo's success has not prevented her from experiencing her fair share of heartbreak over the years, as the yellow brick road to stardom has not been easy. The Broadway and silver screen icon has faced health struggles, heartbreaking family trauma, and major career challenges. Read on to learn more about the tragic details of Cynthia Erivo's life and how her inner strength helped her overcome adversity so she could learn to defy gravity.

Cynthia Onyedinamanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo was born in 1987 in the Stockwell neighborhood of London. Erivo was the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, and before she was born, her mother, Edith, experienced serious trauma while living in her country of origin. During the Nigerian Civil War, Erivo's mother, who was 15 at the time, became displaced, and the experience had a lasting impact. "Her home was ravaged, and they were on the run to find safety," Erivo revealed to Entertainment Weekly. "She told me those stories many times, and I intimately understood what it could be like for her as a young girl."

As an adult, Erivo spoke with her mother more frankly about what she had gone through, especially when working on her 2016 film "Drift" about an African refugee, but when she was growing up it wasn't a regular topic of conversation. "It is always hard to get information when trauma is involved," Erivo explained. "Over the years, I've been eking out bits of information from her to find out what she's been through."

Although it appears as though Cynthia Erivo had a strong relationship with her mother growing up, the same can't be said for her relationship with her father. When Erivo was just 16, her father told her he didn't want to be a part of her life any longer. While it has been reported that Erivo was with her sister at the time, she clarified to NPR that she was alone when her father delivered the confusing and devastating news. "Just me. He told me that he was out of our lives," Erivo said. "And I sort of had to relay the message to everyone."

What was even more upsetting was the fact that Erivo's father's departure seemingly came out of nowhere, and he gave no explanation as to why he had chosen to abandon the family. "I didn't see it coming because, you know, what 16-year-old would?" she told NPR. In her heartbroken state, Erivo had to return to school after the conversation with her father, which was surely difficult for the teenager.

Years later, Erivo channeled her pain into her music, and penned the song "You're Not Here," about her absent father. "This is me admitting that there are things that he's missed and I'm sad that he's missed them," the performer shared with The Glossary. The song is full of raw emotion and honesty, which seems to serve Erivo in her artistic endeavors. "Being vulnerable is how I function," she explained.

Cynthia Erivo is an out and proud queer performer with fans from all over the world. She exudes poise and confidence in her performances and interviews, so it's difficult to imagine her ever having had to hide aspects of herself. But growing up in London as a Catholic school student and the child of Nigerian parents, Erivo didn't even know how to define her queerness, as it was simply not part of the conversation. "I feel like I knew it when I was around 15 but didn't know what to call it," she revealed to British Vogue. "I didn't have the vocabulary for it."

While Erivo has been linked to Dean John-Wilson, Mario Martinez, and Lena Waithe, she has mostly kept her private life private. "It's enough for people to know that I'm a queer person who could have relationships with men or women or neither," she shared with Vanity Fair. But when Erivo spoke publicly about her sexuality in 2022, she did so in order to help those who look up to her. "The consequence is that some young Black queer actress somewhere will know coming in that she's not alone," the actor told British Vogue.

Cynthia Erivo is a powerhouse performer, deeply talented as both a singer and an actor. She has become sought-after for her musical prowess and her undeniable stage presence, but when starting out she had to really push for the roles she wanted. Erivo dropped out of the University of East London, where she was studying music psychology, and was later accepted into the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. But she noticed a significant lack of diversity in the theater at the time, which was troubling. "When I was coming up, there wasn't much room in London for actors who happen to be Black," Erivo told British Vogue.

As a result, Erivo set her sights on parts she knew she wanted, persistently pursuing her dreams. She was particularly driven to land a role in the stage adaptation of "The Color Purple" in the U.K., but initially she had a difficult time even getting an audition. "I just fought and fought and fought for it," Erivo shared with The Cut. "They wouldn't see me for a little bit and then they changed their mind, that I could come in and audition." Erivo ended up getting the coveted lead role of Celie, and her performance earned her a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical after making her Broadway debut.

The height of the Covid-19 pandemic presented challenges and devastation for people the world over. Talent, fame, and money could not assuage the difficulties presented during that time, and many celebrities were just as affected as anyone else. Cynthia Erivo had a particularly hard time during the pandemic, as she was plagued by feelings of loneliness and isolation. "I remember I was in L.A. on my own... I had loads of people around me, but I felt like I was doing my life solo," the actor told The Independent. "I was sort of like in the middle of what felt like a storm ... I just didn't know how to really handle it completely."

Erivo's solution was to pour her feelings into her music, and the result was a number of songs that appeared on her debut album, "Ch. 1. Vs. 1." While she found this to be a way to cope with her overwhelming feelings, she also had to contend with the loss that came with the emergence of Covid-19. In July of 2020, a fellow Broadway actor, Nick Cordero, died at age 41 from complications of the disease. While Cordero's health was declining, Erivo reached out to his family and would sing songs for him via FaceTime after he'd fallen into a coma.

While Cynthia Erivo does not like to speak about her personal life, that hasn't stopped the public from speculating about it. For several years it had been rumored that Erivo was dating producer and actor Lena Waithe, and those rumors became scandalous at times.

Waithe, the first Black woman to win an Emmy in the comedy writing category, was briefly married to production executive Alana Mayo. The marriage lasted just a few months, and the split coincided with speculation that Erivo and Waithe had been spending time together. In 2020 it was reported that Waithe and Erivo were an item. That same year, Waithe opened up to Variety about connecting with Erivo and explained that they'd first crossed paths at the Met Gala. "We did that whole thing ... exchange information and we've just been vibing ever since," Waithe said.

In 2022, Erivo posted a pic of Waithe on her Instagram page, wishing her a happy birthday with the caption, "Today is when we celebrate a woman whose heart is bigger than the body that houses it." It all seemed very sweet, but some followers were unkind, calling Erivo a homewrecker and insinuating that she was the cause of Waithe and Mayo's split. As of February 2025, Erivo and Waithe seem to still be going strong; Waithe was often seen by Erivo's side during many of her "Wicked"-related appearances.

By the time Cynthia Erivo was called to audition for the role of Elphaba in "Wicked," she already had a host of theater, TV, and film credits under her belt. It would stand to reason that she'd become an old pro at auditioning by then, but the process of getting cast in "Wicked" proved to be a grueling experience that left the actor completely exhausted.

One factor that made the "Wicked" audition so taxing for Erivo was that it came right on the heels of another performance. "I had done a concert the night before at Disney Hall," the actor said in an interview on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." And then it turned out that the audition was a three-hour long process, which drained Erivo to the point that she became sick. "I was very ill by the end of it," she revealed. "I was in bed for the next week for like four days with 104 fever." Thankfully, her illness was short-lived and Erivo went on to play the role of Elphaba to perfection.

Aside from the physical demands of her performance as Elphaba in "Wicked," the film required a great deal of emotional energy from Cynthia Erivo. Scenes in which Elphaba is humiliated, for example, required a level of vulnerability from Erivo that was almost painful for her to perform. "It's just not a fun thing — if you are doing it as truthfully as possible — to have to do over and over again," she explained to Vanity Fair. In fact, there was an instance when the film's producer Marc Platt insisted that Erivo leave the set to regroup. "Yeah, I had a big old breakdown," the actor recalled of filming one scene in particular.

Fans who have watched the myriad interviews during the "Wicked" press tour know that Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are incredibly close. While they didn't meet until both were cast in the film, they became fast friends, and it was their extremely tight bond that helped Erivo process her strong emotions during filming. "There are days when she's gonna need space, and there are days when I'm gonna need space," Erivo said of Grande. "But because we love each other very dearly, it's okay."

A defining moment in "Wicked" is the scene in which Cynthia Erivo performs the song "Defying Gravity." What fans may not realize is that the iconic scene was the very last one filmed, and it was stalled for several reasons. One challenge was the fact that there were a mere 12 days left of filming when everything had to be put on pause due to the joint strike of SAG-AFTRA and WGA. The break in shooting "Wicked" lasted for six months, a time during which Erivo did all she could to continue preparation for her big "Defying Gravity" moment. "I'm still getting my body ready, working out, working like I'm still on set, but not on set," she explained to Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers on an episode of the "Las Culturistas" podcast.

Once the wait was over, Erivo was ready to perform but then she was struck with an illness that left her bed-ridden. "Just the worst kind of flu you could possibly have," Erivo revealed. "I mean, my skin was hurting ... it was horrible." Given that the scene required Erivo to literally fly while strapped into a harness and at the same time deliver a stellar vocal performance, she had no choice but to let her body rest until she was physically up to the task. "It just went on for like a week, a week and a half, I was down." Of course, Erivo recovered and completely nailed the scene and the song, but it took quite a while to get there.

In 2024, during the months leading up to the "Wicked" premiere, everything seemed to turn pink and green in anticipation of the film's release. Interviews with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were ubiquitous online, and the co-stars dominated late night talk shows and magazine covers alike.

With all the press leading up to the film came a bit of controversy, and it involved a fan-edited poster for "Wicked" which altered the original in a way that obscured Erivo's face. The actor took issue with the poster, making it clear she was deeply upset by the image. Erivo took to Instagram to post a story depicting the image and airing her grievances to her followers. "This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen," Erivo wrote. "None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us."

The fan-created image seemed to have been a reference to the original poster for "Wicked" the musical, which featured Elphaba's hat covering her eyes, and red lipstick instead of green. Erivo pointed out that the poster for the musical was not a photograph, but an illustration, and went on to express her disappointment. "[T]o edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me," she wrote (via Tribute). "And that is just deeply hurtful." After receiving backlash for what some considered to be an overreaction, Erivo, who is not one to back down, gave ET some insight as to why the poster bothered her so much. "[I]t was just like a human moment of like wanting to protect little Elphaba," she said.

The "Wicked" press tour took the world by storm in 2024, mostly thanks to the charming and meme-able moments from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande's interviews. On the flip side, there was also a great deal of speculation about the stars' appearances, as some fans noted Erivo and Grande both seemed to have lost a significant amount of weight. Some wondered if it was linked to a health issue. Others wondered if Erivo and Grande had been taking the popular weight-loss drug Ozempic.

In a joint interview with French content creator Sally, Grande noted that all of the chatter about their bodies was inappropriate and harmful. "In today's society, there's a comfortability that we shouldn't have at all, commenting on other's looks, appearance, what they think is going on behind the scenes or health or how they present themselves," she said. "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." 

While Erivo didn't comment on the scrutiny, she has made it clear in the past that fitness is important to both her physical and mental well-being. "I like my body as it is and I work out to make sure that it's taken care of both inside and out," the actor told People in 2021. Erivo said she preferred running and core workouts that allowed her to maintain her health while providing space to work through any mental blocks. "I think it allows me to sort of focus on myself, my breathing, my mind, my body," she said.