Lea Michele addresses drama with 'Glee' cast and rumors she can't read

Yahoo

08-05-2025

Lea Michele is dropping some huge Glee bombshells on the latest episode of Jake Shane's Therapuss podcast.
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It's no secret that several former Glee stars are not close to the 38-year-old actress since the long-running Ryan Murphy TV series came to an end. In a new interview on the Therapuss podcast, Michele revealed that she had a rocky relationship with her costars even at the height of the show's success.
When host Jake Shane asked Michele if she and her costars "banded together in a very tight-knit way" after Michele's boyfriend Cory Monteith tragically died in 2013, Michele was quick to say "no."
"I think, in some ways, it did for certain people. But I think that, for me, it was so hard. I just completely broke. I was really in a one-track mind of just doing my job," the actress said. "It was way too much to try to process at a young age, but I'm very grateful for everyone there. Whether or not they know it, I personally felt a lot of support from everybody in the building helping me to get through."
Over the years, various Glee alumni shared their experiences with Michele. Samantha Ware, who joined the show during its final season, 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, has 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."
During this new interview, Michele also revealed that it was her former Glee boss, Ryan Murphy, who first told her about the persistent online rumors that she doesn't know how to read.
"Ryan Murphy called me, and he was like, 'Have you heard this rumor?' And I was like, 'No, what's going on?'"
As Michele bemoaned the fact that the rumor had persisted for years, she reached across and grabbed Shane's notes to read them on the spot — a casual gesture to put an end to the rumors.
Michele has been addressing these rumors going back to at least 2022 when she was starring in Funny Girl on Broadway. "There's a rumor online that I can't read or write? It's sad. It really is. I think often if I were a man, a lot of this wouldn't be the case," Michele told The New York Times in an interview.
On the other hand, the actress has also responded to the rumor in a more humorous way, posting a TikTok of herself calling Spring Awakening costar Jonathan Groff and asking him "to read me the comments on my first TikTok."
Watch Lea Michele's full interview on the podcast below.