A Broadway musical with themes of being an unaccepted outsider and standing up for an oppressed group? Yeah, Wicked is pretty gay. Not to mention five leading cast members of the 2024 film adaptation are queer… and the women known for making Glinda who she is think her queerness might be more direct than simply implied overtones.
People, of course, ship Glinda and Elphie (Glinda’s sweet nickname for Elphaba) aka Gelphie. Literally, “they were roommates.”
Glinda presents the first iconic black witch hat to Elphaba. (Photo: Universal)
“So, you know, whether it’s romantic or platonic—Glinda might be a little in the closet,” Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda, said in an interview with Gay Times. “You never know. Give it a little more time.”
Kristin Chenoweth, who originated the role of Glinda on Broadway, commented “I thought so too, way back when.”
Cynthia Erivo, who portrays Elphaba in the movie, said that Glinda and Elphaba “do have a real relationship, it is true love, which is probably why people are shipping it because what they build with each other is an unbreakable bond.”
Erivo is one of the multiple cast members who queer IRL. She came out as bisexual in 2022 and her better-be-award-winning performance helped us ~hold space~ for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity.” She understands how much Wicked resonates with the queer community, and why.
Elphaba practices magic. (Photo: Universal)
“As I stand here in front of you: Black, bald-headed, pierced, and queer, I can say I know a thing or two about being the other,” she said in May 2024 at the Los Angeles LGBT Center Gala. “Elphaba’s story is… about how a colorful, powerful, magical woman—despite being disparaged, demonized, and discriminated against—becomes a hero. Wicked is a reclamation and a reimagining of the labels used against her. It is the proclamation of her right to exist in all her power. If that sounds familiar to you colorful, magical people in this room—it should.”
Erivo made some other headlines in recent years about her dating life, when news broke that she is dating heartthrob Lena Waithe, something technically unconfirmed since neither of them has publicly spoken on the subject. The pair met at the 2018 Met Gala while Waithe was with her now-ex-wife Alana Mayo. Mayo and Waithe split in 2020 and Erivo and Waithe have been spotted hanging out together since early 2020 but it’s unknown when they went from friends to couple.
In 2022, Erivo posted, “Today is when we celebrate a woman whose heart is bigger than the body that houses it. Happy birthday @lenawaithe I ……. You know the rest! 💕💕” for Waithe’s birthday. Waithe attended the Wicked Los Angeles premiere dressed in green and the two went to the London premiere’s after-party together.
Fiyero, portrayed by Jonathan Bailey, charms his classmates at Shiz University. (Photo: Universal)
Besides Erivo, Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero), Marissa Bode (Nessarose), Bowen Yang (Pfannee), and Bronwyn James (ShenShen) are also out, making a sizable portion of Wicked’s leading cast queer. Given all of the queer-adjacent themes in the story, casting so many LGBTQ+ folks only makes sense.
