Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash
Well, well, well. With everything going on with Black Lives Matter many celebrities are being called out for previous racist behavior while seemingly supporting the cause. Former co-stars from the Fox drama, Glee, were on one accord as they came for Lea’s life on Twitter. Keep scrolling for the tea.
Like any reasonably minded person, Lea posted in support of Black Lives Matter following the killing of George Floyd. What followed was a public dragging nobody saw coming. A few days following her post, Samantha Ware, Lea’s former castmate on the sixth season of Glee, came for her on Twitter saying in part, “LMAO remember when you made my first television gig a living hell…?”
Whoa there. Based on previous comments from Lea’s co-star Naya Rivera who played Santana on Glee, we knew Lea was difficult to work with. But in no way did I ever think it went this far and that she may be racially insensitive. At best, I chalked her up to a diva. I was obsessed with Lea Michele back in the day, so a diva I could deal with. But it seems to be more than that. I’ll let her other co-stars do the rest of the talking.
Yvette Nicole Brown, who starred with Lea in the ABC series, The Mayor, actually responded to Samantha tweet echoing her sentiments saying, “I felt every single one of those capital letters” and then Alex Newell, who starred in later seasons of Glee with Lea said, “felt like claps”.
Alex also tweeted gifs in response:
And while these tweets were pure gold, I felt like I still needed confirmation from some original cast members like Amber Riley. Amber technically didn’t say anything but she did post 3 gifs. This one was my favorite because obviously there are bigger and better things to focus on as echoed in her caption “#DefundthePolice, #prosecutekillercops, #blacklivesmatter”
Kevin McHale seemed to confirm Samantha’s tweet. McHale tweeted “false” to another tweet claiming Chord Overstreet is a Republican and when asked to confirm if he meant false about the Chord Overstreet situation or the entire thread, Kevin replied, “Chord”.
Heather Morris, another original cast member made a statement saying in part, “was she difficult to work with? very much so…”
There was also a tweet from one of the extras from Glee. She claimed Lea held up production and called background cast members cockroaches.
And get this. A former Rachel Berry lookalike claimed Cory Monteith, who played Lea’s on-screen and off-screen love interest, before his sudden passing in 2013, had to comfort her after Lea called her ugly.
“September 2009 I was hired to work at the premiere party for Glee at a high school. They hired lookalikes of the show’s characters to perform at the party. I was the Rachel Berry lookalike,” Moskatow wrote in an Instagram comment on Michele’s page.
“I didn’t know my character was the lead let alone who played her,” she continued. “When the actors arrived at the event and found out there were lookalikes of them Lea came searching for me. When she saw me she said, ‘oh my god! Could they have picked someone uglier!’”
Moskatow wrote that Monteith “saw the look on my face and said, ‘don’t listen to her she’s just jealous, you’re beautiful.’” She added, “I never forgot that.”
So as you can see, so much evidence has been piling up against Lea Michele that she began to lose endorsements within a couple of days. Hello Fresh released a statement saying, “Hello Fresh does not condone racism nor discrimination of any kind. We are disheartened and disappointed to learn of the recent claims concerning Lea Michele. We take this very seriously, and have ended our partnership with Lea Michele, effective immediately.”
So, of course, Lea had to come out and give a statement regarding the backlash she received. But what we actually learned is that she hasn’t learned anything from her past mistakes. Everything she “apologized” for based on perceived things from others. She took no accountability and claimed she didn’t remember certain cast members’ accounts of events.
So, what was achieved by this quasi-apologize. Absolutely nothing. Lea took zero responsibility for the behavior echoed throughout her cast members’ comments. She doesn’t address anyone by name and maybe she sent private dms to apologize (highly unlikely) but would have been nice to address everything directly and without any excuses. Hopefully, she meant what she said towards the end of her statement, “I am a couple of months from becoming a mother and I know I need to keep working to better myself and take responsibility, so I can be a real role model for my child…”.
We hope so, Lea. We hope so.