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Estranged: for good.
Cynthia Erivo detailed the “last time [she] ever had a conversation” with her father before their “shock” estrangement.
The actress wrote in her “Simply More” memoir that her dad left her “alone, in a London underground station after an argument about a transit pass.”
As a guest on the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast Tuesday, she clarified that her father had never been “permanently” in her life before the altercation — but he did always pay for her card to travel to and from school.
When he told the then-16-year-old that he didn’t “want to [do that] anymore,” she became “angry.”
The Tony winner recalled not knowing how to “not lose [her] s–t” at the train station, telling him, “This one thing you have to do. I don’t understand why you’re not doing it right now.”
At that point, a ticket officer chimed in to tell Erivo she “shouldn’t talk to [her] father like that.”
She replied, “You need to be quiet, this has nothing to do with you, you have no idea what is happening here.”
The Broadway star noted that after some “back and forth,” her dad decided, “I’ll get the travel cards, but I don’t want to see you again.”
Erivo remembered, “He gets travel cards and goes in the other direction, and I’m in shock. I didn’t think I realized I would be in shock, and I was in shock. I didn’t realize it would hurt as much, and it did hurt.
“I go to get on the train and because I’m dazed and in tears, I go in the wrong direction,” she continued. “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.”
Since then, the duo have “seen each other twice” at weddings when Erivo was 25 and 35. However, they “have not spoken.”
The estrangement left Erivo feeling “closed off” to other people as she explained, “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.”
However, through therapy, the Oscar nominee has “learned if someone leaves that doesn’t necessarily mean they are abandoning you.”
She explained, “Sometimes it is necessary for them to leave, and that isn’t an offense to you personally. That is just another part of their journey and another part of yours and it doesn’t mean that’s what’s everyone else will do.”
In Erivo’s book, she told readers that she now understands her father “was never meant to be a dad.”
As for the Grammy winner’s relationships with her mom and sister, she wrote that she is still “navigating” their thoughts on her queerness.
Erivo, who is dating actress Lena Waithe, added, “We’ve recently come over a bit of a hump, finding our way toward each other.”
