{"id":299959,"date":"2025-11-18T22:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/299959\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T22:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:26:09","slug":"cynthia-erivo-reveals-estrangement-from-her-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/299959\/","title":{"rendered":"Cynthia Erivo reveals estrangement from her family"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her new memoir, \u201cWicked\u201d star<\/a> star Cynthia Erivo, 38, opens up being abandoned by her father as a teen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 16 when he left me, alone, in a London underground station after an argument about a transit pass,\u201d she writes in \u201cSimply More: A Book for Anyone Who\u2019s Been Told They\u2019re Simply Too Much<\/a>\u201d (Flatiron Books, out today). They haven\u2019t spoken since.<\/p>\n

She spent years desperate to prove her worth to him, but has finally made peace with his leaving.<\/p>\n

The Tony winner grew up in a home that didn\u2019t discuss queerness. FilmMagic<\/p>\n

\u201cI have come to understand he was never meant to be a dad,\u201d she writes. <\/p>\n

Erivo is close with her mother and sister, but she says it\u2019s taken them some time to accept her being queer. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201ca territory we\u2019re still navigating,\u201d the Tony award winner writes. As a teen, she realized she was attracted to both men and women, but an unrequited crush on another girl in high school left her scurrying back into the closet.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until she was in drama school that she began asking trusted friends \u201ca bit about what I was feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erivo has been in a relationship with actress and producer Lena Waithe since 2022, but at the time, she was exclusively dating men.<\/p>\n

Erivo exclusively dated men into her 20s. Getty Images for Universal Pictures<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I dated a woman until my late twenties,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

The \u201cGenius: Aretha\u201d star slowly began to \u201csee who I was and began to accept myself. To own myself fully.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s had to tread cautiously with her family. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy queerness goes against the grain of what many people think is right and proper,\u201d she writes. \u201cI think my mother is worried about what others think \u2026 I see her working to reconcile the idea of what she had in her head for me, her plans for me, and then working to let go of those plans. I\u2019m aware that this must be hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is dating actress and producer Lena Waithe. Getty Images for The Recording Academy<\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201ca territory we\u2019re still navigating,\u201d Erivo (left, with her mom) writes of her family coming to terms with her sexuality. FilmMagic<\/p>\n

Erivo said it\u2019s taken her sister longer to accept things. Cynthia Erivo\/ Instagram<\/p>\n

The Oscar nominee shares that it\u2019s taken her sister even \u201clonger\u201d to accept Erivo\u2019s sexuality. \u201cBut we\u2019ve recently come over a bit of a hump, finding our way toward each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erivo came out publicly as bisexual in a 2022 British Vogue interview<\/a> and acknowledged that it took her a long time to speak out.<\/p>\n

\u201c[LGBTQ+ people] still feel the need to be constantly justifying why we deserve to be treated as equal beings, when really the only difference is that we love differently and we express ourselves differently,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her new book is a blend of memoir and self-help.<\/p>\n

Being abandoned by her father has left her with lasting scars. <\/p>\n

Years back, she was performing at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. At the last minute, her then-manager brought by a bunch of random friends to watch her rehearse.<\/p>\n

She exploded with rage. \u201cI was furious, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever had an outburst like that before or since. To be honest, I even scared myself. I utterly blacked out with rage.\u2019<\/p>\n

Erivo plays Elphaba in the \u201cWicked\u201d movies. Universal Pictures<\/p>\n

Friends diffused the situation, the manager left, and she never saw him again. He sent her an email resigning and chastising her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As her book\u2019s subtitle states, Erivo is well aware that she can be \u201ctoo much\u201d for some people but she has to be true to herself.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taxing to be \u201cour most authentic and true selves hour after hour, day after day,\u201d she admits, but it\u2019s the \u201cmost rewarding way to live.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In her new memoir, \u201cWicked\u201d star star Cynthia Erivo, 38, opens up being abandoned by her father as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[223,236,91,106479,88,156104,156105],"class_list":["post-299959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-books","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-news","tag-cynthia-erivo","tag-entertainment","tag-gay-pride","tag-wicked-movie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}