Don’t call it a comeback! Call it a failure of the entertainment industry to properly handle accusations of horrible behavior?
As you’ve probably heard by now, Lea Michele finally got what she wanted. For an as-yet-unexplained reason, Beanie Feldstein dropped out of Funny Girl two months early, and just hours later we learned it would be Lea stepping into the role of Fanny Brice.
Naturally, fans — or probably more accurately former fans — had a field day making jokes about the news on Twitter Monday morning. See, poking fun at Lea is less cruel and more cathartic for a great many Glee fans who feel their trust was betrayed when accusations of mean girl behavior got out a couple years back.
Related: Remember When Lea Was So Nice To Beanie About Casting News?
Lea had long been known as a bit of a diva, but we learned in Summer 2020 it was allegedly far worse than salary demands or M&M riders. Co-star Samantha Ware, who joined the final season of Glee as Jane Hayward, accused her of straight-up racially motivated abuse! She tweeted the now-infamous accusation that gurl threatened to “s**t in” her wig!
“LMAO REMEMBER WHEN YOU MADE MY FIRST TELEVISON GIG A LIVING HELL?!?! CAUSE ILL NEVER FORGET. I BELIEVE YOU TOLD EVERYONE THAT IF TOU [sic] HAD THE OPPORTUNITY YOU WOULD ‘S**T IN MY WIG!’ AMONGST OTHER TRAUMATIC MICROAGRESSIONS [sic] THAT MADE ME QUESTION A CAREER IN HOLLYWOOD…”
Yeah. Wow.
After that we heard from a lot of cast and crew who had Lea Michele stories. Even nice girl Heather Morris called her “unpleasant.” The Cannonball singer was dropped from her partnership with HelloFresh and was suddenly persona non grata around Tinseltown. It was only when she got hit with consequences that Lea herself basically confirmed the accusation with a public apology.
But the actress jail didn’t last. The Barbra Streisand stan got her dream role on Broadway just two years later — like it never happened.
So yeah, Samantha had something to say. Taking a s**t in Lea’s proverbial wig, she blasted on Twitter:
“Yes, I’m online today. Yes, I see y’all. Yes, I care. Yes, im affected. Yes, I’m human. Yes, I’m Black. Yes, I was abused. Yes, my dreams were tainted. Yes, Broadway upholds whiteness. Yes, Hollywood does the same. Yes, silence is complicity. Yes, I’m loud. Yes, I’d do it again.”
Yes, I’m online today. Yes, I see y’all. Yes, I care. Yes, im affected. Yes, I’m human. Yes, I’m Black. Yes, I was abused. Yes, my dreams were tainted. Yes, Broadway upholds whiteness. Yes, Hollywood does the same. Yes, silence is complicity. Yes, I’m loud. Yes, I’d do it again.
— SAMEYA (@Sammie_Ware) July 11, 2022
Ouch. She also retweeted a few powerful messages:
“this industry will reward bad behavior time and time again. its good to know that you all can only identify abusers when its a cis yt female getting abused. this industry cares not about black people and our experiences within it. Very sad.”
“It’s wild that the decision to tell the truth about the people who tormented you at work is a career risk, but you can stay booked and busy as one of the tormentors”
“the american entertainment industrial complex would crumble if it installed accountability as a standard practice.”
Mm-hmm.
So are they right? Is this Hollywood failing to hold an abusive person accountable? Or is this something else? Is this someone using all the power they can muster to get what they want in spite of what most people think?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments (below)!
[Image via Disney+]
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