Lea Michele Feudster | 71

Matt, were you a theater kid at all? I don't know if we've ever talked about this. No, that is a slur in my opinion. Uh when you ask that to anybody, it is offensive. It is, but if you've been in those trenches, I feel like it's okay. Like it's one thing for a non-theater person to be like, Oh, are you a theater kid? And it's another thing for someone who suffered that reality to clock you. Okay. So you suffered that reality is what you're saying. Yes.

Yes. I don't know if you can tell that about me. I actually don't think I would have pegged you as a theater kid. Thank you for saying that. I had a brush. With theater kid in like middle school, but ultimately tapped out. The spotlight was just too much. Okay. Well, if you have spent even a small amount of time in a theater department, you know that there's always one kid who acts like the diva of the department or often the divo.

But you know, you might be wondering what gives rise to this kind of Theater kid, this kind that thinks the world is going to be handed to them. Are they insecure? Are they just driven? Are they, you know, just plain passionate about the performing arts? Are they mentally ill? All of those things. If I had to if I had to pin it down, it's all of those things. Yeah. Well, today's feudster was a theater kid from day one. I think out of the womb she was probably belting. Okay.

And there has not been a show or a project since where she didn't terrorize everyone else with her antics. Oh, I know who it is.

Let's go back to 2014, which was a whole decade ago, if I may wound you. Yeah. I can't think about it too much. It scares me. No, let's not dwell on it. Leah Michelle and the cast of Glee are filming the final season of the show. Were you a Gleek? Did you watch Glee at all? Still a decade later feel ashamed to say that I was. This is a safe space.

I unfortunately attended Glee Live, which is crazy. It's like one of my darkest secrets. I just actually recently was like, let me watch the pilot. Let me watch a few episodes of season one. It was so good, Jeff. The jokes were on point. Yeah, it started so strong. I mean, there was a reason it was one of the biggest shows on TV. But by this point, when it's in its final season, the star power of Glee has started to dim quite a bit. Because reviews of recent seasons have been very mixed.

So, you know, the pressure is on at this point to close the show out in a respectable fashion. They don't want to just like fade into obscurity. Right. Leah Michelle has been the de facto star of Glee since season one, and she's always been pretty hard on herself. So she feels it very deeply like a true empath as the show loses each viewer. Not not each viewer hurting her. Each one a teardrop.

forms in her eye. Yeah. As filming begins for the final season, she is her usual self, being difficult and finding problems with everyone around her. Mm-hmm. One day, as the cast shoots their latest musical number, she notices something out of the corner of her eye. And that something is one of her new cast members, Samantha Ware, Not doing the choreography when she's off camera. And Leah is furious at this.

Okay. It's basically like why would she have to do it when she's off camera? But Leah has a very theater mentality about it where it's like, even if they can't see you, you should be doing it. Yeah. I also imagine this has been her show since day one. And this is like a relatively newer addition to the cast. She probably feels like she can boss people around. Oh, that's a very good insight.

Because after the take is finished, Leah wheels around on her and starts shouting, you need to come here right now. But Samantha, grown-ass woman, is not having it. You know, this is not elementary school. Leah is not the theater teacher. So Samantha just shakes her head like. I'm not doing that. She refuses to do what Leah says.

You know, she's not gonna be scolded for just trying to enjoy her time on the show. Right. Leah's blood boils even more. She explodes on Samantha and starts threatening her job. She says that she's gonna go straight to the producer slash demigod. Ryan Murphy and talk about this with him. From this point on, she's going to make Samantha's time on the show a living hell. Oh my god, what is her problem? The true definition of a diva.

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Is a classic show from the late 2000s, known for its diverse cast and poppy musical numbers. I'll give them this. There are some songs where I was like, that competes with the original. I mean Glee songs were like making the iTunes charts. Oh my god. Left and right. But here in 2024. We've learned that it wasn't all smiles on the set of the show. The main star, Leah Michelle,

Basically, felt like nobody else deserved to be in the same show as her. Oh my god. She was rude to nearly every cast member, but her reputation for malice. Doesn't end with the show. She's recently been called out online by people from almost Every show or musical she has ever been a part of, and accused of all kinds of mean and arguably racist.

Comments. Oh. And what makes the story even more dramatic is that this falling out comes at a pivotal time in her career and has serious consequences. This is Leah Michelle.

So to start our story, Leah Michelle is driving to audition for a new show called Now, she's nervous, excited, stressed, if I had to guess. She's been in big Broadway productions like Spring Awake. But this would be her first. Okay. Her head is probably swimming with dreams of fantasies of what it would be like to be on this show when bam she gets into a car crash. Oh no. She panics and flees the scene. I'm kidding she does not do that. I'm kidding. No. But she does panic.

You know, this can't be happening. She's on the way to her big audition. So I have to guess that the pathological theater kid in her kicks in and she decides that despite everything, she is going to make it to that audition. I mean, yeah, now she has just pure raw adrenaline pumping through her veins. Yeah, it's like chugging 10 Red Bulls. Mm-hmm. One way or another, she gets herself there. And this is how she describes herself entering the audition room, if you could read it for us.

She said, When I get into the room for my audition, I literally was still pulling pieces of glass out of my hair. They're like, are you okay? I'm like, I'm fine. Wow. I mean, I fully believe that she was not feeling any pain. She has that tunnel vision of I am going to nail this audition, even though.

I'm bleeding out. Right. What's so funny is that, like, this is exactly what Rachel Barry, her character, would do. Exactly. She's like, Psychotically focused on being a star. I think what you'll pick up on is that Ryan Murphy is sort of similar to Shonda Rhimes. in the sense that there are a lot of rumors that he's very influenced by the actual person when he's writing a character. And

That seems to be what happened here. So Leah walks in in that disheveled state and she tries her best to calm herself. Leah prepares to sing on my own from Le Miz because What else would the diva of a theater department sing? Great song. I support that choice. So everything is going as well as it can. You know, she's singing beautifully, but then the accompanist accidentally skips a verse and Leah Freaks out. She is not having it. She stops in the middle of the song yelling.

Excuse me. She just can't help herself. Her true nature comes through. And as it turns out, like you said, that kind of attitude is exactly what the producers are looking for. That's wild. Yeah, of course she can sing, but more than that She is the embodiment of the self obsessed. laser focused theater girl that Ryan Murphy is going for with his Rachel character. It ends up being very meta. Rachel performs the same song for her audition for the Glee Club in the show. Oh, don't I know it?

Here's that clip to remind those who weren't there to witness this. Hi, my name is Rachel Barry and I'll be singing on my own from the seminal Broadway classic Layman. Fantastic, let's hear it. Just so everyone knows, Matt, what's the title of that video? This is like a YouTube compilation and the title is Rachel Barry being annoying and awful for 19 minutes. I gotta go back and watch that. I forgot that that was from the pilot episode. Right.

Just like in the case of Shonda Rhimes casting beautiful chaotic people, this casting works a little too well. Okay. Now, the Glee cast is known for its diversity. So beyond Leah, there are a wide variety of young actors of all kinds. And when I say young Some of them were straight up like twenty-eight playing high schoolers. Unconvincingly. But still young. Yeah. One of those actors, Naya Rivera, God rest, is an Afro-Latina woman who immediately bumps up against Leah.

I don't have to remind you, but Naya played Santana Lopez. the bratty cheerleader who doesn't really want to be in the glee club. In fact, when she starts there, she's like a spy for Jane Lynch's character. Yeah. But she has a lot of scenes with Leah and their feuding on the show is legendary. Most of those scenes are just Naya tearing her apart. Yeah. Pretty viciously. So Leah and Naya started off as friends, but things quickly deteriorated. Naya would later write this in her memoir.

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, um, I mean Leah, didn't like sharing the spotlight. If I'd complained about anyone or anything, she'd assumed I was bitching about her. Soon she started to ignore me, and eventually it got to the point where she didn't say a word to me for all of season six. Wow. Naya Rivera is like

Specifically, she was mad that I was getting more attention. It seems like even the cast was like the character and the actress were indistinguishable. I think early on they were like, oh, okay, let's keep an eye on that. And then... Just completely spiraled out of control. Yeah. But I do think it's funny that they kept their characters in direct competition even into the final season. I feel like

Like they need to charge the writers with like reckless endangerment. They were definitely loading up a powder keg inside of Leah Michelle. Mm-hmm. Now I do feel it's important to flesh out the context of Leah's life at this time.

It doesn't defend her actions, but it might give us a little more insight into why she might have been a little more difficult during this time. Okay. She kind of went through a lot. During the show, you know, she was dating her co star, Corey Monteith, who also played her love interest on the show, but he was struggling from drug.

At the time. And right before season five, he tragically passes away from drug use. He's only 31 years old, and she's 26 at the time. This hits her really Really hard, and she later says I don't even remember a time when he wasn't my boyfriend. I think I forgot that they were dating in real life and it wasn't just Matt, between you and me, there are a lot of blind items that he was gay and that she was his beard and that what caused extra tension on the set was that everyone was like

that was not your real boyfriend. You barely liked him. Interesting. Why are you being so performative with your grief? But obviously this is all rumor. Right. So obviously we don't know what the state of their relationship was when he passed away, but they were very close and The entire cast, I'm sure, felt that loss very deeply. Yeah. Regardless of this tragedy, Leah's behavior gets inexcusably worse and worse, and it's gonna come back to haunt her. Oh yeah.

Now let's introduce the player from the beginning of this episode, Samantha Ware. Right. She's 23 years old when she joins the cast of season six. She's fresh off of some major theatrical productions, including The Lion King and the Book of Mormon. But you know, The Lion King was the Vegas production, and Book of Mormon was mostly touring, so probably not good enough for Miss Spring Awakening, Broadway Tony Darling, Leah Michelle. Sure.

She's not of Broadway caliber yet. No, she's not a Broadway baby. She hasn't had the same amount of acclaim that Leah had before joining Glee, but she is a rising star. But from Leah's perspective, she just isn't cutting it. Leah's about twenty-eight at this time, so around five years older. Probably looking down on Samantha as this young, naive girl. Uh-huh. Here's a clip of Samantha's debut performance on Glee.

I'm realizing I may not have finished Glee. I may not have seen the last season. You gotta go back. But yeah, that's Samantha's introduction. She sings a Janelle Monet song. Okay. I guess I can see like it's more like poppy and less like Broadway musical theater-y, and maybe that gets on Leah Michelle's nerves or like does it meet her standards? I guess sure. Who knows what goes on inside that knob? Never really talked about the fallout potentially from that car crash. Mm-hmm.

So picture the cast on a sound stage. Shooting a musical number. And this is the scene from the beginning of our episode where Leah gets mad at Samantha and shouts. You need to come here right now. And threatens to call Ryan Murphy. Right. Now, to Samantha's knowledge, Ryan wasn't ever contacted. Samantha decides that she's gonna try to talk to Leah one-on-one later on. And Samantha claims that Leah tells her to shut her mouth and that she doesn't deserve to have the job. Wow.

Loser behavior. Yeah, it just like what authority does she have? Like, you're in the sixth season of Glee. I don't think you have the power you think you have. Like, what are you doing? Right. If you can believe it, things get even worse later in the shoot. Oh God, how can it get worse? Well, Samantha commits the crime of laughing while watching one of Leah's scenes. I don't know if it was a serious scene or a comedic scene, but she laughs. But apparently this is a big no-no.

According to Samantha, Leah snaps at her, saying, I'm going to shit in your wig. Absolutely deranged. I knew this quote from somewhere and I knew like Leah Michelle had threatened this allegedly. Yeah. But to hear it in this context is beautiful. To also imagine that it was said very loudly is Crazy. Like you say that privately because it's so crazy and unhinged and racist that like why would you yell that? But Samantha later tells Variety this.

Some chuckled and some gasped. It was mortifying. The whole point was for her to embarrass me. People heard her, but no one was going to stand up to her. Stepped in and was like, hey now. That's not nice. The power that she must have had in that room and or on that set is like, yeah, she has struck fear in people, apparently. Unfortunately, Leah is getting away with. All of this for now. She's the star on Glee, but the show is ended.

And her reign won't last forever. The dam is finally about to burst, and all of her co-stars are going to start calling her out. One by one. This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax. Tax deadline looming and you're stuck in the dark? We've all been there. Sending documents to a tax pro, then playing the waiting game, constantly checking for updates that seem to never come soon enough.

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Alright, Matt. We have followed Leah Michelle's career in the late 2000s and early 2010s as she terrorizes the cast of Glee. But now it's 2015. The show has ended. And she has to figure out what's next in her career. She doesn't have that much success as she joins the cast of a couple non-musical shows. There's Scream Queens in twenty fifteen. Yeah. A

Criminally underrated Ryan Murphy show. Right. That show only lasts two seasons. Also notable that she got hired by the same man who had hired her previously. Then there's the ABC show The Mayor in 2017. But tragically, that only lasts one season. Oh, she was in that? Yeah, I forgot that too. But all of these projects are just Leah biding her time until she can get the role she really wants. Her white whale. She is a hab when it comes to this show.

You see, Leah is obsessed with playing the lead in the Broadway musical Funny Girl. If you don't know Funny Girl, you should watch the Barbara Streisand movie. She quite frankly kills it. Yeah. And of course, her glee characters are. actually reflected Leah's own obsession. That's true. Back in 2010, Leah performed the musical's hit song Don't Raid on My Parade at the Tony's. And throughout the run of Glee, Rachel is obsessed with Barbara Schreisan and funny girl.

To the point where Glee ends with Rachel getting cast in a fictional revival. That's right. Yeah. And then in a classic Ryan Murphy twist, he immediately makes Naira Vera's character have to split the role with Rachel's character. He's so messy. Once again, powder keg. Mm-hmm. So everyone knows that that's what Leah wants to do in real life as well. And around 2014, she gets a huge update on that front as Ryan Murphy purchases the rights to the show and wants her to star in.

So Leah's super excited about this. She tells Broadway World, definitely we It. We. We, her and Ryan. Okay. But as time passes and 2014 turns into 2015, nothing seems to happen. Eventually, Ryan Murphy confirms that he's not actually that interested in. Because they already did nine of the That feels like you're just pulling out excuses to try to get out of it. Yeah, I mean but Vok has actually referred to the entirety of Glee as Leah Michelle's six year audition for Funny Girl. I guess so.

So the funny girl production falls through. Leah is likely devastated. I mean, what was her six-year run on Glee, if not for that? Yeah. Leah perhaps Still hopes that another Broadway producer will revive the show and cast her. Only her chances of getting cast. Or having a career at all. people are about to be put in major jeopardy.

So in 2020, when all of the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests are going on, Leah performatively tweets in support. And I say performatively because very quickly people call her out on her. On her shit. Because you can bet Samantha Ware, one of the black actors that she harassed on Glee. is not letting that slide. Here's her

tweet if you want to read it to us and this is probably where you first saw the shit in your wig thing. Leah Michelle initially tweeted, George Floyd did not deserve this. This was not an isolated incident and it must end. Hashtag Black Lives Matter. And then Samantha quote tweeted it, all caps

LMAO, remember when you made my first television gig a living hell? Cause I'll never forget, I believe you told everyone that if you had the opportunity, you would shit in my wig, amongst other traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood. I love the insinuation that that is a traumatic micro aggression and not just an outright aggression. I know that one's pretty macro, but I have no doubt that there were scores

Of microaggressions that went alongside those. I feel like this prompted a whole onslaught of people responding to celebrities. Tweeting about Black Lives Matter with this view and then it would be some screenshot of them doing the exact opposite. Absolutely. This was like a really huge moment for getting caught online. Right.

Also, this is literally peak COVID. So all of us have nothing better to do than to be online bullying Leah Michelle. Oh yeah. And I think what made this moment even more interesting was this was back when you could see people's likes. And So many cast members were liking shady tweets. And like liking outright aggressive tweets towards Leah Michelle. Yeah. Like they were saying so much without saying anything. So after this explosive revelation, Leah, of course, has to apologize.

And that goes about as well as you would expect if you could read part of her apology. She says Well I don't remember ever making this specific statement. and I have never judged others by their background or color of their skin, that's not really the point. What matters is that I clearly acted in ways which hurt other people. Whether it was my privileged position and perspective that caused me to be perceived as insensitive or inappropriate at times, or whether it was just my immaturity.

And me just being unnecessarily difficult, I apologize for my behavior or any pain which I have caused. We all can. and change and I've definitely used these past several months to reflect on my own shortcomings. Perceived. That line is the interesting one. Whether it was my privileged position and perspective that caused me to be perceived. As insensitive or inappropriate. Like how many wild things is she saying to people that she doesn't remember saying all shit in your wig? Ha ha ha.

It's funny that she's like not denying that she said it either, just that she doesn't remember it. I know. I give this apology a four out of ten, not very good, and Samantha isn't having it. She tweets right back It shouldn't have to take my tweet. When you tweet Black Lives Matter, that would mean you have an understanding of what that hashtag means. But it's clear that it doesn't. Does Leah even know what a microaggression is?

I mean, yeah, if I am Samantha Ware, I would not buy that apology. Actions speak louder than words. And All that she has to go off of is Leah's actions. I'm taking a screenshot of the statement and sending it to my girls and then I'm sending it to the group chat we have without Leah Michelle and we're all laughing about it. Yeah. Oh, you know the Glee alumni group chats, they were lit up. Yeah, hundreds of notifications. Uh-huh.

So this Twitter thread just absolutely explodes online. leading to tons of other responses from her former co stars. Gerard Kanisu, Leah's co star during her time on Broadway Spring Awakening, says this, if you could read it. Okay. They wrote

You were nothing but a nightmare to me and fellow Understudy cast members. You made us feel like we didn't belong here. I tried for years to be nice to you to no avail. Maybe actually apologize instead of placing the blame on how others perceive you. And after this. Someone with even more star power than a Broadway actor, Abigail Breslin, who worked with Leah Michelle on Scream Queens, likes a bunch of tweets calling Leah out. Just little Miss Sunshine on her phone.

Liking all of those nasty tweets. Love her. Yvette Nicole Brown, who starred alongside Leah in ABC's The Mayor, replies to Samantha's original tweet saying, I felt every one of those capital letters. And as a reminder to the listeners, Samantha's entire tweet was in all caps. Oh my god, Yvette Nicole Brown, she had to put up with Chevy Chase and Leah Michelle. Oh my god, she's been in the trenches. So yeah, she knows. She knows what it's like.

Yeah, and then even a fellow child star who worked with Leah as a kid on Broadway in the 90s. Says, she demeaned the crew and threatened to have people fired if she was in any way displeased. She was 12. She was terrifying. Ha ha ha. She has been this way forever. This is just kind of the lot that she drew in life, and she's just

performing the role that she was always meant for. I don't know if you remember Heather Morris from Glee. She played Britney. Uh-huh. And she actually got into a little trouble of her own around the George Floyd protests because she did an interpretive dance. That was well intentioned, but it You know, use what you have, sure. Not her best moment. She did apologize for it. I do think she had very good intentions. But Heather decides to come forward and speak about Leah on a podcast.

And I mentioned that moment because I'm like, she might have been like I messed up and now I feel even more of a burden to call other people out. But this is what she said on the podcast. 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.

I think many people were very scared. I know genuinely I didn't feel like it was my place. It's just so funny that she's talking about this in terms that you use to describe like A predator, like we knew this was happening and we stayed silent. And it's like she's just kind of describing Leah Michelle being awful. Right. That almost does make more sense to me of like, you know, you have all of these.

Relatively younger actors being like, I don't know if it's my place to be like, hey, this girl's being a little wacko. Yeah, because all of them were fairly unknown. And so if Leah Michelle is the one with the most out amongst them. I can understand why they wouldn't think they actually had the ability to change anything. So it is pretty fun to laugh at the reaction. Talia

getting caught and to sort of revel in the fallout of all of this. But unfortunately a tragedy happens very soon after that changes the vibe completely. Okay. So for a little more context, Apparently, according to Heather Morris, Naya Rivera was the only one to call Leah out when they were actually filming the show. Oh. And this resonates even more in July 2020 when Naya tragically drowns. The lake where this happened, Lake Piru in California, is very large, very large.

And very windy. At least a dozen other people have drowned there. And I don't know if you know this, Naya was out there with her son. If maybe she saved him, couldn't save herself, but he was found wearing a life jacket. So always wear your life jackets if you're not going to be able to do it. in a big body of water like that. Yeah. But yeah, this is just a little over a month after Leah's public call out and reckoning.

So these two things happen very close to each other. The entire cast goes to Lake Piru and holds a vigil where it happened. Is Leah Michelle there? No. Famously no, she did not go. Here's a picture of that. So it's the whole well, most of the cast holding hands. At the shore. And there is some debate as to why she wasn't there. You know, she is pregnant at the time and COVID is in full swing. So, you know, she might not have been able to make the trip to the lake.

Or in my mind, I'm like, did she know that people would be like, Why are you there? Naya did not like you. You had a bad relationship with her? Was she sort of reading the room and being like, I don't think they want me there? Yeah, it's kind of lose lose for her, to be honest.

But I mean, being pregnant and this is, you know, the height of COVID, that is understandable. Yeah. And I actually think it was for the best that she didn't intrude. And we can't underestimate the fact that she just couldn't read the invitation. So true, Matt. So true. This podcast episode would not be complete without us mentioning the conspiracy theory that Leah Michelle is illiterate.

So, Leah does post a photo of Naya in tribute, so it's not like she does nothing, but a lot of fans do criticize her for not showing. One of her endorsement deals, the one with HelloFresh, does fall through and Leah is generally seen as a monster. And while you might expect that Leah doesn't really care about being seen this way. Her reputation is about to cost her the most important role of her career. Oh no. Is this gonna rain on her parade? Oh, I see what you mean.

For the straight people listening, that's a song from Funny. We've talked about Leah Michelle's Rise and fall, as she gained fame for being on Glee, then became infamous for how she treated cast members of just about every production she'd been a part of. At this point, Leah has given her half-hearted apologies and is ready to move on. So now it's 2021 and Leah hears that, against all odds, there is going to be a revival of Funny Girl after all. Right.

Yeah, her dream role is back on the table. And even better, the director, Michael Mayer, Is actually the same director who worked with her on Spring Awakening all those years ago. Oh, does Ryan Murphy still own the right? They actually do have an expiration date of sorts. If you don't do stuff with them. Got it. Got it. So Leah naturally feels like she's a shoe-in for the role. Sure, she was sort of soft canceled in 2020, and people have been saying it.

exclusively negative things about working with her. But that won't stop Michael from casting her, right? I mean it is one of those things where she is undeniably made for this role. And has been auditioning for it for essentially like a decade. Yeah, it makes sense that she feels entitled in this moment. Mm-hmm. Well, in a complete and utter shock to Leah.

She doesn't even get the chance to audition. I mean that is completely and utterly shocking. Michael announces he's going with a different actress entirely, Beanie Feldstein. First of all, you be kind to Beanie. Love Beanie. Beanie Feldstein. Absolute gem. I was flabbergasted by this news. I think most Broadway people were kind of confused by that casting choice. For those who don't know, Beanie is from a showbiz family. Her father is a business manager, and her older brother is Jonah Hill.

Right. She's seven years younger than Leah, so she got her start a little bit later, but as we all know, the Nepo baby creds can make up for that. She's been steadily gaining fame throughout the 2010s. On the stage and in film roles. And a lot of these roles have a feminist bent to them. Beanie is queer, so she's kind of, you know, a quirky Jewish progressive star, as opposed to Leah's. He Jewish but also Catholic. completely toxic persona. Sure.

The immediate reaction from fans and the media to Beanie's casting is a sense of relief because everyone's like, thank God it's not Leah. I think it was less. excitement about Beanie and more so like, yeah, F you, Leah Michelle Mm-hmm. Now

Say what you want about Leah, but I guess she has learned a couple lessons, all self serving ones, because she is smart enough at this point to play it cool. Okay. We can imagine that she's probably really angry. Maybe she does a Patty Lapone dressing room deconstruction. I mean, there's a wall in her house that is just covered in fist holes now. Yeah, but that is Total speculation on our part. Public, she congratulates Beanie on Instagram. She writes.

You are the greatest star. Which is a play on a funny girl lyric. Right. Beanie ends up going on and of course we have to mention him because this is An episode of Dysantel. She goes on Andy Cohen's radio show. And Beanie says this. I didn't know that any of this was happening, by the way. And all of a sudden people started explaining it to me and I was like, wait, what?

Like I don't follow any I don't under s I didn't understand. But um she very sweetly wrote on my uh Instagram, I don't know the woman whatsoever. Interesting. I don't know if I believe that. I know. I know. I'm like a very, very well played I don't know her. I doubt it makes Leah feel better that Beanie's like, I do not know this woman. I did not know this was her dream. But you know what might make Leah happy? Beanie getting panned by critics.

Because unfortunately when the reviews start rolling in they are not Kind to beanie. Right. Here is one from The Guardian, if you could read it for us. Oh, leave it to the British to say something absolutely eviscerating. This is a musical, one with some full tilt belting, and her singing just isn't up to par.

Paper thin, reedy in the higher registers, and overly nasal throughout, Feldstein's voice is noticeably untextured compared to the rest of the cast. The role that gave Stryzanne some of her staples People and Don't Rain on My Parade, Funny Girl Showstopper that Feldstein visibly musters every ounce of strength to Blair, requires a power singer. Feldstein simply isn't one. Ugh.

Poor Beanie. Yeah, poor Beanie. Her only crime was being miscast. That is the sad thing about all of this. In theory, she kind of embodied this role, but like that review said, this is a show that has these real belty numbers. It's like asking Billie Eilish to sing an Adele song. She's not a belter.

She's not gonna be able to do what Adele can do. I do think Billie Eilish could probably absolutely body an Adele song. I didn't say she couldn't, but Billie Eilish has been quoted as saying her belt is not close to Adele. It's not her strong suit. Yeah. Okay. The stage really is one of the last places where if you are not good enough, they will get you out of there. You can't hide. You're performing live every night. If you're bad, they will talk about it. Right. So we can probably guess.

That this is music to Leah Michelle. In June 2022, after only a three month stint in the role and a slew of horrible reviews and poor tickets.

Beanie announces that she'll be exiting the show. Then, literally the next day, Leah announces that she'll be taking over. So I do feel we have to mention a lot of people know that Jane Lynch leaves the show around this time. And if you'll remember, she played Sue Sylvester in Glee. She starred alongside Leah for many years. And a lot of people think that she leaves right before Leah starts to avoid working with her again. For the record, Jane denies this.

She says there's no drama here, none. She claims that she's just leaving so she can extend her vacation. I would love if that wasn't true though. Yeah, it seems pretty obvious that it is just like a coincidence, but it is very funny. And like I think a lot of people really like glom onto that as further proof that nobody wants to work with her. Yeah. So going into this

Leah knows that she's gonna have to do some damage control, obviously, because people were not happy about this news. And a lot of the press around the show ends up being Leah trying to prove that she's changed. She says this. At the end of the day, what matters the most is how you make people feel, and you have to put aside your feelings.

The conversations that I've had behind the scenes with some people were incredibly healing and very eye-opening for me. I've been doing this for a really long time, and I'm not going to ever blame anything on the things that I've been through in my life. But you also can't ignore those experiences or deny them. They are a part of the patchwork of my life. When I got the call that I was going to play Fanny Bryce,

I said, okay, this could be really big for my career, but it is also helpful to have this opportunity to introduce people to who I am now. It is funny that she's sort of mythologizing this part of her life. All of this stuff together makes me me. Yeah. There's also a way of reading this that is like her saying, I'm not gonna blame the way I've behaved on stuff that's happened to me.

But just keep in mind stuff has happened to me. It's like she doesn't say it, but she strongly implies that like her past behavior is the result of stuff that's happened in her life. Yeah. And it's like, what happened when you were 12? And you were threatening to get the crew fired. I I don't know. But I guess if if you take this at face value, you know, she's saying, I've changed essentially. I've had conversations and I've reflected and my eyes are now open.

But not everyone is willing to give Leah her second chance, or should I say fourth, fifth chance. I don't know. Notably several Her former co stars say that they won't find Here's a podcast interview where the host asks if he wants to go see Leah Michelle and Funny Girl with them. And here's what he says. My day suddenly just got so full. Wait, no! Wow Chris No. So you're not. No I'd be triggered. Thank you, Chris, for being willing to be openly catty. Yeah. Wow, there really was like

No love lost between any of them and Leah. No, they do not fuck with her in a way that makes me like. What did you do to these people? Yeah. Well, his loss. Oh, his loss. Okay. So Leah gets better reviews, which is not surprising. She is a powerhouse singer. And after all, like we said, Broadway comes down to can you sing it or not? Can you put on a good show? Yeah. Millions of dollars are on the line.

Funny Girls still ends its run a year later in 2023. So no extension, no re-up. This is not Phantom of the Opera or Wicked. It's not running for decades. It ends

when it was always supposed to. Right. It's unclear why because at one point I remember seeing tweets about ticket prices being like four figures for one ticket. Like$1,500 for a matinee of Leah Michelle. Wow. The clips that I saw people post online, I mean, yeah, Leah Michelle killed it. But why do you think she gets away with this? Do you think it's sort of a Tom Hardy thing where

You're so good that we have to keep working with you. Yeah. Curious to see like how the rest of Leah Michelle's career is gonna go and whether this funny girl run rehabilitated her image at all. Cause it does feel like Everything that she's done so far. She's only gotten because the people doing the hiring already know what they're getting. Right. There hasn't been any real retribution for her behavior. No. And what's

Interesting is with this new role, it's not like she's showing us anything new. You're playing funny girl. We always knew that you could you did it on Glee for years. Yeah, I I feel like the jury is still out on what the impact is gonna be on like the rest of her career. Yeah, who knows? Maybe she'll become a frequent collaborator of Ryan Murphy.

Maybe. I think the lesson from all of this, for me at least, is that I can be as big of a monster and a nightmare as I want and still get everything that I want. Babe, you are a 6'3, white man. And if you had the voice of Aliyah Michelle, I would be unstoppable. You know you could get away with. anything. I could take the biggest shit in any wig that I wanted. You're crazy for that. From Wondery, this is Dis Ann Tell, Leah Michelle Feudster. The show is hosted by me.

Sydney Battle. And me, Matt Belisai. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were Vox's A Complete Timeline of the Leah Michelle Beanie Feldstein Funny Girl. casting controversy and varieties glee actor Samantha Ware on why she called out Leah Michelle. Our story editor Greg Castro wrote this episode. Kate Downey is our lead producer, and Jake Dvorsky is our associate producer. Our senior story editor is Alex Burns.

Sound design is done by Kelly Krameric with additional audio assistance provided by Daniel Gonzalez. Fact checking by Sonia Maynard. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync. Joe Florentino is our coordinating producer. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelo, Stephanie Jens, Marshall Lewey, and Aaron O'Flarity for Wondering.