Heather Morris opened up about why no one ever spoke out against former co-star Lea Michele and her controversial behavior during filming of Glee.
Morris was a recently a guest on the Everything Iconic With Danny Pellegrino podcast, where she talked about her career before her Glee days, when she was a back up dancer for Beyonce, and eventually how she landed her role on the hit show as Brittany S. Pierce.
Last year, Samantha Ware revealed on Twitter how Michele made her first TV-gig on Glee a “living hell,” which was a reply to Michelle’s tweet about the George Floyd incident. After the news broke out, many of Michele’s former Glee costars spoke out against her behavior on set, including Morris.
In June of 2020, the dancer tweeted Michele was “unpleasant” to work with and that “she should be called out.”
— heather (@HeatherMorrisTV) June 3, 2020
In the podcast, Morris explained, “I don’t know if maybe we were victims of bullying and that’s a typical victim thing to do is to blame yourself… But it also is very true, and the only person who was honest about it was Naya [Rivera]. And it was something that was very hush-hush on set.”
In 2016, Naya Rivera released a memoir called Sorry Not Sorry, and was the only person who opened up about Michele’s diva behavior. “As the show progressed, though, that friendship started to break down, especially as Santana moved from a background character to one with bigger plot lines and more screen time. I think Rachel—erm, I mean Lea—didn’t like sharing the spotlight.”
When asked why no one ever spoke out against her sooner, she replied, “We absolutely could have stepped up and gone to the FOX execs and said how we felt about the situation, and nobody really did. And so now we are living in a culture where it’s acceptable to go do things like that, whereas I think many people were very scared. I know, genuinely, I didn’t feel like it was my place. And I don’t know why, because I was a cast member just like everybody else, and we all deserved to feel comfortable on a set.”
Pellegrino followed up with whether it was a “specific instance” or “the elephant in the room,” to which Morris replied, “I think it was the elephant in the room, you know, we all got close with Lea at certain points, and then we all weren’t as close with her. And so there’s a human element to it to understanding who this person is, growing with that person, seeing her try to become better. And, you know, taking care of herself after Cory [Monteith] passed. You know, it was just the elephant in the room.”
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Following Ware’s tweet and the multiple accusations against her, Michele had issued an apology statement on her Instagram for her behavior. “I apologize for my behavior and for any pain which I have caused,” she said. “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.”
Do you think the cast members should have spoken up sooner about the situation? Let us know by leaving a reaction below or by sending us a tweet at @celebsecrets.
