Lea Michele claims she had a lot of “healing and eye-opening” conversations after Glee criticism

• The former Scream Queens star expressed her hope that playing Fanny Brice in Funny Girl.
• Fox broadcast Glee from 2009 until 2015.
• A former co-star who had tweeted that Michele had made her time on set a “living hell.”

Lea Michele and her Glee co-stars are patching things up. Following the 2020 issue over her alleged behavior on the Fox musical series set, the Funny Girl lead, 36, disclosed that she contacted former costars.

“I think these past two years have been so important for everybody to just sit back and reflect,” she told Interview Magazine. “I did a lot of personal reach-outs. But the most important thing was for everybody to just take a step back.”

Michele discussed her progress since the controversy first surfaced.

“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 explained. “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,” she added. “But you also can’t ignore those experiences or deny them. They are a part of the patchwork of my life.”

The former Scream Queens star expressed her hope that playing Fanny Brice in Funny Girl would help people view her in a different way.

“When I got the call that I was going to play Fanny Brice, I said, ‘Okay, this could be really big for my career, but it’s also helpful to have this opportunity to introduce people to who I am now.'”

Being a mother to 2-year-old Ever Leo with her husband Zandy Reich is one of those life transformations.

“What I told myself stepping into Funny Girl was, ‘If I can’t take my role as a leader offstage as important as my role as a leader onstage, then I shouldn’t do this show,'” she recalled. “Because that was always a struggle for me.”

She added, “So to have this opportunity now at 36 years old as a wife and a mother — to step into this job that comes with so much pressure and a huge amount of responsibility — was a very, very big achievement for me.”

Fox broadcast Glee from 2009 until 2015. In June 2020, Michele publicly apologized to Samantha Marie Ware, a former co-star who had tweeted that Michele had made her time on set a “living hell.”

“One of the most important lessons of the last few weeks is that we need to take the time to listen and learn about other people’s perspectives and any role we have played or anything we can do to help address the injustices that they face,” Michele said in a lengthy statement shared with news at the time.

In another part of the apology, it said: “Although I don’t recall ever saying anything in particular and I’ve never made assumptions about someone based on their background or skin tone, that isn’t really the point. What matters is that it is obvious that I behaved in a way that caused harm to others.”

“I’m sorry for my actions and any hurt I may have caused, regardless of whether it was my privileged position and perspective that occasionally made me seem insensitive or inappropriate or whether it was just my immaturity and need to be tough. We can all improve and adapt, and during the past few months, I have surely used this time to consider my own flaws.”

Following the apology, Heather Morris, Michele’s co-star on Glee, commented on the accusations, stating on Twitter, “Was she difficult to work with? Very much so; I think Lea SHOULD be called out for treating people with the disdain she did for such a long time.”

“It’s also on us,” she continued, “because to allow it to go on for so long without speaking up is something else we’re learning along with the rest of society.”

Also Read

Lea Michele sings “Funny Girl” at Macy’s Parade

Today will be great. Impatient!"Michele was joined by her castmates as they...