“Glee” star Heather Morris said she recently explained why she never said anything about the rumored bullying behavior of star Lea Michele on set.
Morris said on the “Everything Iconic With Danny Pellegrino” podcast that she was worried about speaking out because of Michele’s reputation on set.
- “I don’t know if maybe we were victims of bullying, and that’s a typical victim thing to do is to blame yourself, which people were saying. 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,” she said.
Morris said Hollywood’s culture when “Glee” was released didn’t accept people complaining or speaking out about bullying, according to Today.com.
- “Now you see all these things coming out with these bigger names who were very disrespectful and mistreated a lot of people, and people allowed it to happen,” she said. “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 deserve to feel comfortable on a set.”
Lea Michele controversy
Michele was first criticized back in June 2020 after Samantha Ware, who appeared on the final season of the show, slammed Michele on Twitter, saying there were times where Michele said she wanted to defecate on Ware’s wig, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
Amber Riley — who appeared on “Glee” as Mercedes — responded to the criticism with a GIF of herself raising her hand and sipping tea, which was a sign that she agreed with the criticisms.
Soon after that, Yvette Nicole Brown, who worked with Michele on “The Mayor” TV show, agreed with the criticism, too.
Michele later apologized for the controversy, saying she learned a lot about her behavior, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
“I listened to these criticisms and I am learning and while I am very sorry, I will be better in the future from this experience.”
- “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 and for any pain which I have caused. We all can grow and change and I have definitely used these past several months to reflect my own shortcomings.”