Lea Michele Attributes Illiteracy Allegations to Sexism
She CAN read, according to her
It’s allll happening. On Tuesday, Lea Michele will finally step into the role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. A big debut like this deserves a big New York Times profile, and our girl got one! Let’s see what she has to say:
“I went to Glee every single day; I knew my lines every single day. And then there’s a rumor online that I can’t read or write? It’s sad. It really is. I think often if I were a man, a lot of this wouldn’t be the case.”
Alrighty then. From her lips to the internet’s deaf ears, Lea Michele can read, and it’s actually sexist if you have made one of those jokes. To her credit, she might be onto something here. If anyone on the Glee cast can’t read, it’s obviously Matthew Morrison. But he’s a man and we were all busy bullying him for other things, so Michele had to catch that heat.
Elsewhere in the profile, Michele sort of addresses the allegations that came from her Glee coworkers that she was racist/hard to work with/generally a bully. Well, sort of. She said that she has reflected and now she’s ready to be the star of a Broadway show.
“I really understand the importance and value now of being a leader,” Michele told the paper. “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.”
Don’t you love it when you can really see the media training? Michele gives just enough in this interview to make it seem like she’s being open, listening and learning. She cried when she couldn’t learn to tap dance immediately, she “really [doesn’t] care” about the fact that she isn’t eligible for a Tony, and she says that being a child actress on Broadway often put her in a “semi-robotic” state. Blah blah blah, where is the good stuff?
Naturally, it comes in an anecdote from Jonathan Groff about Ryan Murphy officiating Michele’s wedding to Zandy Reich. Recounting the first time the Glee creator had dinner with Michele and Reich, Murphy apparently said, “This was the first time I’ve had dinner with Lea where the main topic of the conversation wasn’t about her, what she wanted to do next creatively.”
Yeah, baby, that’s the good stuff. If my boss said that at my wedding I’d poison his champagne (or perhaps shit in his wig), but I’m sure Michele handled it with grace and tact.
Congratulations are in order for Michele and the whole Funny Girl team. They’ve weathered the storm and gotten a flattering Times profile out of it. Now let’s get those ticket sales back up, girls!
