Lea Michele has addressed Samantha Ware’s bullying accusations against her in a candid new interview.
Samantha played Jane Hayward on the sixth season of Glee in 2015, while Lea played Rachel Berry for all six seasons.
The bullying allegations against Lea first surfaced in 2020, when Samantha accused her of making “traumatic microaggressions” against her on set.
At the time, Samantha’s claims were backed up by other Glee stars, including Heather Morris who said Lea “should be called out” for the way she treated others “for as long as she did.”
During a new interview with The New York Times this week, Lea was asked to comment on the bullying accusations.
The 36-year-old said the allegations prompted an “intense time of reflection” about her conduct at work.
Lea admitted: “I have an edge to me. I work really hard. I leave no room for mistakes. That level of perfectionism, or that pressure of perfectionism, left me with a lot of blind spots.”
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Ahead of her Broadway debut as leading lady Fanny Brice in ‘Funny Girl’, the actress continued: “I really understand the importance and value now of being a leader.”
“It means not only going and doing a good job when the camera’s rolling, but also when it’s not. And that wasn’t always the most important thing for me.”
Lea declined to comment any further on the bullying allegations, as she said she does not “feel the need to handle things” through the media.
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Samantha’s bullying allegations against Lea first surfaced in 2020, after the actress took to social media to pay tribute to George Floyd.
“George Floyd did not deserve this. This was not an isolated incident and it must end,” Lea tweeted at the time.
Samantha swiftly hit back at Lea, as she tweeted, “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 ‘s*** in my wig!’ amongst other traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood.”
Lea subsequently issued a public apology to her Glee co-star and vowed to “be better in the future.”
However, Samantha refused to accept her apology and went on to detail Lea’s alleged behaviour on set during an interview with Variety.
Speaking about her first impression of Lea, the 28-year-old said: “I knew from day one when I attempted to introduce myself. There was nothing gradual about it. As soon as she decided that she didn’t like me, it was very evident.”
“It was after I did my first performance, that’s when it started—the silent treatment, the stare-downs, the looks, the comments under her breath, the weird passive aggressiveness. It all built up.”
Samantha then described one of the times Lea reprimanded her in front of the entire cast and crew.
“When you’re shooting a scene, sometimes the camera is on you and sometimes it’s not, but you still have to be in the scene,” she explained.
“The camera wasn’t on us, so it’s not like we had to give a full throttle performance, but apparently, I was goofing around when the camera wasn’t on me, and she took that as me being disrespectful to her.”
“She waited until the scene was over and she stopped in the middle of the stage and did a ‘come here’ gesture, like how a mother does to their child.”
When Samantha ignored Lea’s request, she told Variety, “…that’s when she decided to threaten my job, and said she would call [series creator] Ryan Murphy in to come and fire me.”
“When I tried to speak up for myself, she told me to shut my mouth. She said I don’t deserve to have that job,” she continued.
“She talked about how she has reign. And here’s the thing: I completely understood that, and I was ready to be like, ‘This is your show. I’m not here to be disrespectful.’ But at that point, we were already past the respect and she was just abusing her power.”
Samantha said she never made a formal complaint against Lea, because her alleged behaviour seemed to be accepted on set.
“I guess since it was such a common thing, my case didn’t seem like that big of a deal,” she said. “I remember the first day I actually spoke up and unfortunately no one did anything.”
“They just shrugged it off, like ‘That’s her.’ No one was stopping these things, which is an issue because the environment was helping perpetuate this abuse.”
