How Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo could make Hollywood history at the Oscars
Cynthia Erivo is on track to make Hollywood history. (Getty)
With her Best Actress nomination at the 2025 Oscars, queer Wicked star Cynthia Erivo is one step closer to becoming an EGOT holder, and making Hollywood history.
Performers with EGOT status have earned an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, with the current list including multihyphenate entertainment powerhouses like Audrey Hepburn, Whoopi Goldberg, Elton John, and Viola Davis.
Erivo currently has a single Emmy Award, Grammy Award, and Tony Award, all for her role in the 2015 Broadway revival of musical The Colour Purple. She just needs the Oscar for Wicked to complete the prestigious quartet, and if she does so, she’ll become the youngest EGOT holder in history.
The star, who turned 38 earlier this month, would unseat Frozen star and Hollywood’s only ever double EGOT winner Robert Lopez from the title, who was 39 when he accumulated all four awards in 2014.
Dear Evan Handsen music composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul were also both 39 when they became EGOT winners last year.
“All of Me” singer John Legend was 39 too when he racked up all four award wins needed to reach EGOT status in 2018.
Cynthia Erivo almost reached EGOT status in 2020, after she was nominated in both the Best Actress and Best Original Song categories for 2019 film Harriet, her biopic of abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
Erivo’s nomination included, Wicked has scored an impressive total of ten nominations at the 2025 Oscars, including one for Ariana Grande in the Best Supporting Actress category. It marks the pop superstar’s first ever Oscar nomination.
Could Ariana Grande become an EGOT winner too?
Though “Yes, And?” hitmaker Ariana Grande has two Grammy Awards lining her mantelpiece – plus 16 other nominations – she is some way off reaching EGOT status.
Grande currently doesn’t hold an Emmy Award nor a Tony Award, meaning if she does bag her Oscars win, she’ll only be half way to EGOT status.
The 2025 Oscars could see history made for the trans community, with Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón potentially becoming the first publicly trans woman to ever win an Oscar in an acting category.
Gascón is currently the only out trans woman to ever be nominated for an acting award at the ceremony.
The 2025 Oscars take place on 3 March 2025.
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