In case you missed it, or you’ve been focusing on other, more pressing issues happening around the world, Glee star Lea Michele has been accused of some pretty dodgy behaviour by her various co-stars. However, not all of them are keen to keep discussing the drama – like her Glee co-star Amber Riley. Hear about all the drama below:
Last weekend, Michele tweeted her support for the Black Lives Matter protests and a few days later, her Glee co-star Samantha Ware responded by accusing her of making her “first television gig a living hell,” amongst other things.
Ware’s accusation set off a chain of similar claims from other co-stars including Dabier, Heather Morris, and Broadway star Gerard Canonico. Glee star Amber Riley also shared her support for Samantha Ware’s tweet by posting a GIF of her ‘sipping tea.’
During a recent Instagram Live interview with journalist Danielle Young, Riley was asked about the recent accusations against Michele.
Riley began by saying “I don’t know the best way to address this, because I am not a vindictive and petty person. We’ve already heard other people say it wasn’t the most comfortable environment,” she said, referencing the set of Glee.
She said she was proud of Samantha Ware for “standing up for herself” and “not being fearful in speaking her truth.” Riley explained that Ware didn’t want Michele to show support for Black Lives Matter protests when she had mistreated her in the past.
“I am not going to say Lea Michele is racist,” Riley continued. “That was the assumption, because of what’s going on right now in the world and it happened toward a black person.”
Riley mentioned that Lea Michele is currently pregnant and acknowledged how much she’d been dragged over the last couple of days. However, she also revealed that she had received multiple DMs from other black actors “letting me know they dealt with the same things, and were terrorised by the white girls that were the leads of the show.”
“We all know that a person of colour and a black person is always the sidekick,” she said. Riley spoke about the “culture of Hollywood” and hearing stories of white women “using their privilege and the fact they’re ‘not fireable’” to terrorise their counterparts, but ultimately, had a clear response to the Lea Michele controversy.
“I don’t give a shit about this Lea Michele thing,” she said. “I don’t want to be asked about it…. People are out here dying, being murdered by police. Trans women are being murdered at the hands of men, who are upset about being trans-attracted.”
“I wish Lea Michele well, I hope she has an amazing pregnancy, I hope that she has grown,” she said. “I have no hatred or ill-will on that end. My life, and what I talk about is not going to be about that.”
It’s an incredibly classy response, and something we could all benefit from listening to.
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