Lea Michele addresses toxic diva behavior and illiteracy rumors ahead of ‘Funny Girl’ debut
Don’t bring around a cloud to rain on Lea Michele’s parade because she’s just under a week away from her debut as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl.And Twitter has been abuzz this morning as The New York Times has published an interview with the star, one which touches everything from the show’s casting drama (Michele is stepping in for Beanie Feldstein, who made a highly scrutinized departure from the show earlier this summer) to the ongoing rumors and jokes that Michele doesn’t know how to read.
So, yeah, it’s a doozy.Of course, Fanny Brice is a role that’s been on Michele’s vision board for a while now, though she admits, “I will never be as good as Barbra Streisand.”Related: ‘Who are you now?’ ‘Funny Girl’ and a Broadway revival’s identity crisisOn Glee, her character Rachel Berry—a role Ryan Murphy wrote specifically for Michele, which feels pretty obvious—eventually nabbed the part in the fictional revival of the musical, closing a circle from season one, when Berry performed “Don’t Rain On My Parade” at Sectionals.Murphy even had the rights to to a Funny Girl revival for a period of time, and wanted Michele for the part.
Thus sufficiently blurring the line between the real person and the character. “It all kind of morphed together a little bit,” she admits.But it’s impossible to discuss those parallels or Michele’s time on Glee without also addressing the storm of criticism and allegations against her that came to a head in 2020.
Samantha Marie Ware (who had a recurring arc on the show’s sixth season) famously accused her of “traumatic microaggressions” as well as other threatening and demeaning behavior.
