Cynthia Erivo’s talon-nails have become one of the talking points of the neverending Wicked promotional tour. She’s been doing different nail styles, coordinated with her couture, for the premieres and junkets. Now white people feel comfortable enough to ask her some intimate questions about how she functions with those nails. There’s already a conversation about whether some or all of this is racist or an example of racial microaggressions. It could be, but I will say this… I remember when people had similar questions about how Khloe Kardashian functioned when she had her crazy talon-nails too (and Khloe is white). So, Dax Shepard asked Cynthia THE question: how does she wipe with those talons?
Cynthia Erivo doesn’t think her talon nails get in the way of her bathroom duties. While appearing on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman to discuss Wicked, Shepard asked Erivo, 37, if her long talon nails make it difficult to wipe her behind after going to the bathroom. Before Shepard, 49, even finished asking the question, the Oscar nominee knew exactly what was coming.
“I knew you would ask that question,” she said, adding that “no one’s afraid” to ask it. “My answer is that nobody uses just their fingers to wipe their backside. You use tissue, correct? And you wipe!”
Shepard then rephrased his question. “Does the tissue go on the tip of the fingernails, or do you try to get the tissue…” he said before trailing off. “Pads of the fingers,” Erivo said.
“Great, great, great, now we’re getting somewhere,” Shepard said. “Then you’re just feeling the little tickle of the nails on the crack of your butt sometimes?” Erivo said this was not the case because she uses tissues. After joking that he would make a mitten out of toilet paper if he had nails like Erivo, Shepard asked her if she was offended or annoyed by the question.
“I’m annoyed by it. I’m, like, ‘Come on, guys,’ ” Erivo said. “But I get it, but it’s also, like, ‘I’m a functioning adult, and I’ve never walked around smelling like, you know…’ ” Shepard felt that because everyone thinks Erivo smells “so good, it begs the question, ‘How are you wiping your tush?’”
“Very well,” Erivo said, as Padman, 37, explained that the question is likely a reflection of the people asking because they couldn’t properly wipe with nails like Erivo’s.
“Here’s the thing, there are people who do not have nails who need to check how they’re wiping,” Erivo said.
Here’s the thing – I understand the curiosity, and my curiosity would have been satiated by asking her one time and then dropping it. There was no need for Dax to go on and on about it. It was like he wanted her to demonstrate her wiping technique. CB brought up something else – Dax is well-known for being dirty and unwashed. There is a different kind of racial element to this. As in, it’s a conversation about how (some/many?) white people are afraid of soap and they can’t wrap their heads around how someone like Cynthia manages to shower daily and stay clean.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.