McHale and Jenna knew they needed to shift gears after agreeing to do a second one together

• Glee alums Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz understood they needed to change their approach after deciding to discontinue their first podcast together.
• McHale, 34, and Ushkowitz, 36, previously co-hosted Showmance before joining forces for their most recent podcast project with iHeartRadio, and that’s what you really missed
• However, the two stars declared Showmance to be “on hiatus,” leaving fans on Reddit wondering why it ended.

 Glee alums Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz understood they needed to change their approach after deciding to discontinue their first podcast together.

McHale, 34, and Ushkowitz, 36, previously co-hosted Showmance before joining forces for their most recent podcast project with iHeartRadio, and that’s what you really missed. The endeavor started out as a chance for the two to talk about how their on-screen connection turned into an actual friendship off-screen, but it gradually changed into a Glee review podcast.

However, the two stars declared Showmance to be “on hiatus,” leaving fans on Reddit wondering why it ended. It turns out that their choice to discontinue the podcast was motivated by the unexpected death of Naya Rivera, their former Glee co-star, and close friend.

“When Jenna and I first started a podcast, it was just about best friends who met at work, and through that, we got to know a lot of intriguing people. But we soon found that people were only interested in learning about Glee “Artie Abrams’s actor McHale exclusively reports news.

“It was at the very beginning of the [rise of] rewatch podcasts,” he continues. “We started doing it, but it wasn’t necessarily a well-thought-out, well-intentioned, well-researched take on it. We were just like, ‘Let’s just do it.’ And then after Naya’s passing, we decided we don’t want to do this anymore.”

After being reported missing during a boating trip with her son Josey at Lake Piru in Ventura County, California, Rivera was later declared deceased in July 2020. Days after her body was discovered, the Ventura County Medical Examiner determined that she had drowned accidentally. She was 33.

“I think once Naya passed,” says Ushkowitz, “there was a reckoning of sorts for all of us in many, many ways.”

On Twitter, McHale announced that Showmance would release episodes “that were pre-recorded” in June 2020, about a month later. He added that they would take a break afterward. The most recent episode debuted on August 6, 2020.

But finally, iHeartRadio asked McHale and Ushkowitz to host a brand-new podcast. The two ex-costars “had long chats about it,” according to McHale.

“I think maybe we sort of found each other at a perfect time,” he adds. “It just seemed to work out.”

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