Entertainment
Cynthia Erivo forced to give up £10,000 job singing for Westlife for heartbreaking reason-Robert Oliver-Entertainment – Metro
Back in her student days.
![Cynthia Erivo forced to give up £10,000 job singing for Westlife for heartbreaking reason-Robert Oliver-Entertainment – Metro](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/GettyImages-2185804495.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Cynthia Erivo has come a long way from her days as a working student (Picture: Jeff Spicer/WireImage)
Cynthia Erivo has revealed for the first time that she was forced to give up a £10,000 job which would have seen her sing alongside Westlife.
The star of stage and screen, 38, has had a whirlwind year, starring in the hit movie musical Wicked and receiving an Oscar nomination for her work.
Starring Cynthia as Elphaba Thropp opposite Ariana Grande-Butera’s Galinda Upland, Wicked has been an enormous success at the box office and has also been nominated for the Academy Award for best picture.
It marks a crowning moment in Cynthia’s 15-year career, which began in earnest with TV shows such as Chewing Gum and stage appearances in productions like Marine Parade.
However, things didn’t always go Cynthia’s way, with the Bad Times at the El Royale star revealing that an unfortunate experience at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art left her making a heartbreaking decision.
Cynthia attended RADA in the 2000s, eventually graduating in 2010 at the age of 23 after transferring across from the University of East London.
Things turned out okay for Cynthia in the end! (Picture: Universal Pictures via AP)
By 2020, her star had risen, and she became RADA’s first ever actor of colour to be named as the school’s vice president – RADA apologised for ‘systemic racism,’ both historic and current.
Speaking to The Guardian this week, Cynthia has claimed the problems went much deeper and were rooted in class as much as they were rooted in race.
The Widows actress said that she didn’t just experience racism during her time at the school, and was made to feel disadvantaged after receiving a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity.
Cynthia was offered the chance to sing backing vocals for mega-successful Irish vocal group Westlife – and she would have been paid £10,000 for the pleasure.
£10k to sing with Westlife and ‘pay everything off’? Sign us up! (Picture: Brian Rasic/Getty Images)
Cynthia eventually became RADA’s vice president (Picture: Ernesto S. Ruscio/Getty)
But when she asked the school if she could miss the first two weeks of her course in order to accept the opportunity, Cynthia was given a firm no.
‘The people running RADA [didn’t] necessarily understand people who aren’t given everything. They don’t understand what that experience looks like.’
At that time in her life, £10,000 would have ‘paid off everything’ according to the Stockwell-born Hollywood star, but had to turn down the offer to begin her studies.
Cynthia was ready to take it on the chin, but found out that another student on her course had been permitted to miss two weeks of a course because they were starring in a play.
RADA admitted to ‘systemic racism’ in 2020 (Picture: Andrew Jankunas/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty)
‘There was another student [on my course] in a play, missing two weeks, and that was fine. It was just a weird looking down on a backing-vocals gig.’
Fast forward to the present day – if Cynthia receives an Oscar for her role as Elphaba, or for her involvement with Wicked, she will become a member of the exclusive EGOT club.
EGOT is the abbreviation used to refer to actors who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony award – Cynthia has three of those already, with just the Oscar left to claim.
At the age of 38, she would become the youngest person to become an EGOT, beating the record set by Robert Lopez when he was 39.
Metro has contacted RADA for comment.
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