Cynthia Erivo Reveals Taylor Swift’s Grammy Mischief: Pop Superstar Secretly Shakes Up Awards Night by Offering Her Seat—Insiders Claim Swift’s Bold Move Sparked Backstage Drama and Celebrity Rivalries! What Really Happened Between the Two Stars? Fans and Industry Veterans Stunned by Erivo’s Explosive New Revelations.

Why was Swift holding space for the “Wicked” star?

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Cynthia Erivo and Taylor Swift at the 2025 Grammys in Los Angeles

We all saw Taylor Swift literally holding space for Cynthia Erivo at the 2025 Grammy Awards by sharing a seat with the Wicked star, but now Erivo has revealed the behind-the-scenes scoop on how this moment happened.

“She caused absolute mischief and it was hilarious and fun,” Erivo said during an appearance on SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up with hosts Nicole Ryan, Ryan Sampson, and Stanley T.

She remembered arriving at the venue’s main space, hot off the red carpet press line.

“It took a really long time to get in because I feel very guilty if I miss people on the carpet, so I tried to do every interview and those interviews ran a little bit long,” Erivo said.

By the time she did get in, the ceremony, hosted by Trevor Noah, had already begun.

“I was trying to get to my seat and didn’t have a lot of time to pass by, and Trevor Noah was over there doing his intro,” Erivo continued.

That’s when Swift apparently said something along the lines of, “Just come over here. Sit here.”

“So I was like, ‘Okay,’ and then just came and sat next to her and just waited,” Erivo shared.

The moment went instantly viral, fueled by a video shared to social media by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Chris Gardner. Later in the ceremony, Swift was spotted in the background of a camera shot holding onto Erivo’s finger and laughing — a recreation of the “holding space” meme that sparked from an Out magazine interview with Erivo and Ariana Grande on the Wicked press tour.

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“I didn’t know what any part of it meant,” Grande previously told Variety of the “holding space” moment. “I didn’t understand the first sentence. And then I definitely didn’t understand what was happening — how you [Erivo] responded. I was like, ‘Oh, what did she say? What did you hear?’ And I just wanted to be there ’cause I knew something big was happening, and I didn’t know how to be there.”

Erivo attended the Grammys this year to perform as part of the tribute to Quincy Jones, who died in November at 91. The actress, who’s already a Grammy winner for her performance on Broadway’s The Color Purple theater album, is quite close to EGOT-ing. And she just might get it next year, since she worked on original music for the Wicked sequel, Wicked: For Good, in theaters this Nov. 21.

“It does feel surreal and sometimes I try not to think about it at all because again, it’s just like, for me, it really has to start with the work,” Erivo said of her EGOT chances on The Morning Mash Up. “If I’m just aiming for the Oscar, I will miss the things in between that I think will actually bring me a lot of joy and a lot of learning, and so in that, I might actually miss the thing that will bring me towards that Oscar. You know, so for me, it has to start with the work and it has to be there first and if that comes, then that comes.”