According to a new interview, Lea Michele is trying to make amends for her behavior while starring on the hit show Glee.
Slave Play writer Jeremy O. Harris interviewed Michele, who is currently starring on Broadway in Funny Girl, for Interview Magazine, and in the wide-spanning conversation, Harris asked Michele about her troubles with former Glee cast members.
“I think these past two years have been so important for everybody to just sit back and reflect. I did a lot of personal reach-outs. But the most important thing was for everybody to just take a step back. More than anything, I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to apply the things that I’ve learned over the past ten-plus years in a positive way.”
She also said that she sees her leading role on Broadway as a chance to step up as a leader and do better than before, as well as a chance to introduce fans to the “new her.”
“At the end of the day, what matters the most is how you make people feel. And you have to put aside your feelings,” she said. “The conversations that I’ve had behind the scenes with some people were incredibly healing and very eye-opening for me. I’ve been doing this for a really long time and I’m not going to ever blame anything on the things that I’ve been through in my life. But you also can’t ignore those experiences or deny them. They are a part of the patchwork of my life.”
Glee is a cultural touchstone, but for those who actually worked on the show, it was far from a dream. Several former cast members have come out in the years since the show ended airing saying that they were bullied and othered by star Lea Michele.
Samantha Ware, who joined the cast in 2015, said that Michele made her first television job “a living hell” and threatened to “s*** in my wig.” Heather Morris, who played cheerleader Brittany S. Pierce on the show also called out Michele for her behavior on the show.
“With that said, was she unpleasant to work with? Very much so; for Lea to treat others with the disrespect that she did for as long as she did, I believe she SHOULD be called out,” Morris said in 2020.