Cynthia Erivo recalls final conversation she had with her estranged father at 16
Cynthia Erivo has opened up about the final conversation she had with her dad before their “shock” estrangement.
The Wicked: For Good star has previously touched on their relationship in her memoir, Simply More, when she revealed he left her alone in a London underground station after a fight about a transit pass.
But the 38-year-old shared more details from that day, when she was just 16, during an appearance on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast earlier this week.
Watch the video above.
Erivo clarified that her dad had never been “permanently” in her life before the heated moment, but he did always pay for her travel to and from school.
She added that her mum had always given her the space to get to know her dad, and him the space to get to know her, but it never really happened.
When he told the then-16-year-old that he didn’t “want to [do that] anymore,” she became “angry.”
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The Broadway star admitted she didn’t know how to “not lose [her] shit” at the station in that moment.
“This one thing you have to do. I don’t understand why you’re not doing it right now,” she told him.
A ticked officer inserted himself into their argument and told Erivo she “shouldn’t talk to her father like that.”
“You need to be quiet, this has nothing to do with you, you have no idea what is happening here,” Erivo recalled snapping back.
“We go back and forth and then he decides, I’ll get the travel cards, but I don’t want to see you again.”
Erivo said that he went to get the travel cards and just walked off in the other direction.
“I’m in shock. I didn’t think I realised I would be in shock, and I was in shock. I didn’t realise it would hurt as much, and it did hurt,” she said.
“I go to get on the train and because I’m dazed and in tears, I go in the wrong direction.
“So I turn around to go the other direction, and I spot him coming toward me. He passes me by like he’s never met me before.”
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The actress added that the duo have “seen each other twice” since that day, both times at weddings when she was 25 and 35.
Despite seeing each other, she added they “have not spoken.”
Erivo admitted that the estrangement with her father left her “closed off” to other people.
“I never asked for help, I would do most things on my own because I was sure someone was going to leave … I would push people away immediately,” she said.
But through therapy she has learned that someone can leave and it doesn’t mean they are abandoning her.
In the memoir she wrote more about the estrangement with her dad, but also that she is still navigating her relationship with her mum and sister.
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