feature image photo by Roy Rochlin / Stringer via Getty Images
The Wicked cast was already pretty gay, and with the release of Wicked: For Good, it got even gayer, adding Colman Domingo as the Cowardly Lion, a character with a rich queer history of his own, making the casting feel intentional. If you’ve wondered to yourself: Who all’s gay in Wicked? Well, the answer is almost everyone! Sadly, not Michelle Yeoh. And though I Google “Ariana Grande bisexual” at least quarterly, there are no updates on that front either. But take a look! There are so many gays in this cast! And that is unsurprising to me, a former musical theater kid who somehow made it through performing arts high school without coming out but who was surrounded by homosexuals at every turn on stage.
Cynthia Erivo
Photo by Lia Toby/Getty Images
Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba in Wicked, came out as queer in British Vogue in 2022. Therefore, when Cynthia was cast as Elphaba in the Wicked movie, we decided all Wicked news was automatically gay.
In the spring, Erivo accepted the Rand Schrader Award at the annual Los Angeles LGBT Center Gala and said in her speech: “It is a privilege to be on this stage tonight because for so long I lived in deep admiration of anyone who could fully embody their true authentic self, wear their queerness like a feather boa and proudly state ‘This is a beautiful part of who I am.'” She also shared her deep personal connection to her role as Elphaba. “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. “Elphaba’s story is the cautionary tale of what it can sometimes mean to have to stand in your individuality, your otherness, even when systems of oppression are set against you.”
She is in a relationship with Lena Waithe. Gay Power Couple much?
Jonathan Bailey
Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
Jonathan Bailey, who plays Fiyero in Wicked, has been publicly out as gay since 2018, though he came out privately to family and friends before that, in his early twenties. In a GQ interview following his rise in popularity from his role in Bridgerton, he recalls hearing a story early on in his career when a fellow actor friend was told: “There’s two things we don’t want to know: if you’re an alcoholic or if you’re gay.” “Of course I thought that in order to be happy I needed to be straight,” Bailey tells GQ. “I reached a point where I thought, Fuck this, I’d much prefer to hold my boyfriend’s hand in public or be able to put my own face picture on Tinder and not be so concerned about that than getting a part.”
In my professional opinion, Fiyero being played by a gay man only adds to my headcanon that Elphaba and Glinda are in a relationship with each other and Fiyero is merely their platonic but perhaps toxically enmeshed gay boy best friend. A love triangle where they’re all gay! The ending of For Good was really so much more about the Glinda/Elphaba relationship than it was about anything else.
Marissa Bode
Marissa Bode is also queer! The actress who plays Nessarose (and has unfortunately had to call out ableist comments about her character) has been providing some queer disability visibility on the Wicked press tour as an out wheelchair user. I love that BOTH Thropp sisters are played by queer actresses, especially since BOTH Thropp sisters have baby gay vibes (Nessa/Boq are so closeted dyke4fag).
Bode is in a relationship with writer Lauren Brooks. They did Chappell Roan-inspired couples costumes for Halloween this year!
In an interview with Gay Times, Bode said of the first Wicked movie: “This movie is for everyone, but the girls and gays are definitely going to be seated for sure!” And say that!
In Wicked: For Good, Bode gives a truly incredible performance as Nessa, who has a bit of a complicated villain arc. I hope to see a lot more of Bode in upcoming productions, musical and otherwise.
Bowen Yang
SNL icon Bowen Yang is a very delightful and gay presence in the Wicked movie as Pfannee (yes, pronounced…fanny), one of Glinda’s sidekicks at Shiz. Pfannee is definitely textually queer in the film! He swoons over Fiyero! Co-hosting the popular gay pop culture podcast Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and starring in the gay rom-com Fire Island, Yang has a very queer career, and his casting in Wicked was thrilling news for me and all the gays and girls I know.
“Everyone, get ready: I’m really showing my range, I’m playing a gay guy,” Yang joked on his podcast. He also has had a lot of fun making fun of his character’s name in the even-gayer-than-the-movie Wicked press tour. I wish Pfannee had more to do in Wicked: For Good, but the sparse moments we do get are delightful.
Bronwyn James
Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
Playing ShenShen, Bronwyn James is ALSO queer, which means both of Glinda’s sidekicks are played by gay actors! And no, Pfannee and ShenShen don’t seem to fall into the stereotypical “gay best friend” category at all — I mean, perhaps most notable because Glinda’s a little bit in the closet according to, you know, everyone. Glinda surrounding herself with gays while entering into a fraught homoerotic dynamic with an enemy-turned-best-friend? That has closeted musical theater gay written all over it, and I should know.
James is married to Katherine-Alice, who founded a nonprofit that promotes accessibility in the arts in Yorkshire.
Yang and James answered some wonderfully gay questions from Gay Times about their characters, including which character would stay at the gay club all night, to which both answered ShenShen. Party Dyke Legend!
Sharon D. Clarke
Photo by Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Sharon D. Clarke is a heavily accoladed UK stage actress, and she voices Dulcibear, the bear nurse who raises Elphaba since her father is an asshole who hates his green child. Clarke is married to writer and director Susie McKenna. The fact that Dulcibear is voiced by a queer woman only adds to the queer family vibes of Elphaba’s upbringing. I bet if Elphaba wrote the letter she pens to her father in the song “What Is This Feeling?” to Dulcibear instead then maybe she would have been told “it sounds like you’re in love with her.” Dulcibear returns in Wicked: For Good, and I have mixed feelings about how much of the animals we get in the second film — they’re important to the story! But the CGI is…not as immersive as perhaps they’d hoped.
Colman Domingo
Photo by Taylor Hill/WireImage via Getty Images
Colman Domingo voices the Cowardly Lion in Wicked: For Good. It seems like a waste to have Colman Domingo in a movie where we don’t even get to see his face, but alas! I’m glad to welcome him into the gay Wicked fam. I am obsessed with Colman’s love story with his husband, Raúl Domingo, who he has been married to since 2014. But long before that, in 2005, Colman spotted Raúl in a Walgreens parking lot. They locked eyes but didn’t even talk to each other. They both tried to find each other online, did, met up, started dating, and are now powerhouse Hollywood husbands. Someone turn THAT into a musical!!!!!
Love this.
💚💗
omg i didn’t know about marissa or bronwyn! i love this for us (them)
cannot stop obsessing over how much i loved this movie keep the content coming.
we willllll
bisexual ariana 2025 😭
from your lips to bisexual god’s (megan thee stallion’s) ears
technically, ari has never said she wasn’t queer….
I believe she is not straight? On her and Victoria Monét’s song “MONOPOLY,” she sings, “I like women and men” and when someone asked if Ariana was bi, Victoria replied with “she said what she said” (source: https://images.genius.com/5cd2ce72c31bb91f2a82c0aa9beedb68.1000x454x1.jpg)
yeah i do agree that ari seems probably not straight which is def why i rejected my original idea for this article which was to list everyone and say if they were gay or not gay. def didn’t feel comfortable labeling her “not gay” but also for related reasons don’t feel quite comfortable ascribing a concrete label to her since she hasn’t really fully explicitly stated one way or another, so i thought my little wink in the intro about googling it constantly was sort of my tacit way of acknowledging that she probably is bi! i think if she ever says something a little more concrete I can officially add her to the list :) anyway — that was my thought process lol
“I bet if Elphaba wrote the letter she pens to her father in the song “What Is This Feeling?” to Dulcibear instead then maybe she would have been told “it sounds like you’re in love with her.” ”
YES.
thank youuuuUUU
I’ve officially seen Wicked in the cinemas more times than is healthy. I just tell myself that I need to see it in all of its various cinema formats – 2D, 3D, Imax, ScreenX etc.
To all those who wonder about Ari’s bi-ness I would check out her song with Victoria Monét, “Monopoly”, where she says, “I like women and men (yuh)”. That was enough for me!
Lol no. Ariana is the straightest “pick-me” alive. She lives for male validation, whether it comes from married men or not.
The men are all ‘gay’ and the woman are all ‘queer’? Does that mean there were no gay woman in the cast?