The Glee Project Alums Call Out 'Traumatic' Treatment and 'Boot Camp'-Like Conditions: 'We Were Children'

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Former contestants on The Glee Project, the short-lived competition reality series that also served as an audition for guest roles on the megahit FOX series Glee, have described their experience as "traumatic" in a new oral history.

"There were so many great elements of the show, but it was also really anxiety-inducing and there was a lot of trauma," season 2 contestant Abraham Lim told Insider. "Trauma bonds were made."

The Glee Project was conceived in the wake of Glee's 2009 debut and instant popularity as a way to find young actors that would impress creator Ryan Murphy, now 56, enough to inspire him to write a role for them on Glee.

"What's interesting about the show is this was about somebody's creative vision," The Glee Project executive producer Shauna Minoprio told Insider. "It wasn't about who's the best singer or dancer. It was about who Ryan Murphy was the most excited to write a character for."

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Season 1 ultimately saw two co-winners in Samuel Larsen and Damian McGinty, with runners-up Alex Newell and Lindsay Pearce earning smaller arcs. Blake Jenner emerged as season 2's winner and became a full-time cast member, while eventual Tony winner Ali Stroker scored a one-episode role.

Tyler Golden/Oxygen

Cast members on the show's first season were housed at a summer camp that featured outhouse bathrooms without roofs. They were not allowed to read magazines or books, multiple cast members told Insider.

"The filming was — in every way, shape, and form — a boot camp," recalled Pearce.

When it came time for weekly cuts, bulletin boards listed the names of who was in and who was out — high school musical-style.

"Ryan knows exactly what's good and what's bad," supervising story producer and editor Christopher Orne said. "He's not afraid to tell you — and he shouldn't be. You should be open to his criticism, because he's a mad genius. You know he's gonna make the right call."

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Season 2 contestant Harper Grae told Insider she came out as gay to Murphy during a "last-chance performance," in which vulnerable contestants had to sing to secure their spot in the next week of competition. Grae's admission was made "through tears and panic," she said, but the show did not include the footage.

"I'm very thankful they didn't air that," Grae told Insider. "They could've. That would've been TV drama."

Lim told Insider that The Glee Project's singing coach asked him if he identified as "androgynous" and that the production team wanted him to clarify his sexuality and gender identity on camera, which he was unwilling to do.

"They were trying to get an admission of sorts from me, and I'm like, 'You're not gonna get anything, because I don't know,'" Lim said. "I'm not gonna sell my soul down the river for a seven-episode arc on Glee. I'm figuring out who I am."

Looking back, Minoprio said, "They [were] kids, and he said he wasn't comfortable. People should support that."

Lim reflected, "There are a lot of things on that show that, if they happened now, people would be getting canceled left and right. Certain things were handled poorly back then."

Pearce, who eventually played Harmony on Glee, told Insider she revealed details of a previous sexual assult to producers when the contestants were encouraged to reveal secrets while filming a dark video set to the song "Mad World." She said she shared on camera that the aftermath of the assault meant she presented a facade to the world at times.

When the show aired, and Pearce wore a sign with the word "FAKE" on it in the video, her sexual assault claim was omitted and the footage had been edited to appear as if she was implying "people like me because I'm pretty, which makes me feel fake."

She told Insider: "That was gut-wrenching, 'cause I wouldn't have shared my experience if I knew how it'd be edited. It didn't fit the narrative that they were trying to make."

Pearce also said that a kiss she shared with Mitchell was spurred on by the show's music video director without Mitchell's knowledge.

Mitchell, now 32, told Insider he had a girlfriend at the time and was "very upset and felt taken advantage of" by the show's producers, who he also said tried to get him to kiss a different contestant two weeks later — after he "made it very clear that's not something I wanted to do again."

"There was this sense from Ryan and the writers of like, 'This is what Glee is. This is the show you are applying to be on. It's quite a sexual show, and there's a lot of romance. Can you get comfortable with that? Or is this not for you?'" Minoprio told Insider.

Mitchell quit the series after the second incident and said that choice "altered the course of my life."

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Pearce, for her part, called the production "abuse, whether they thought it was or wasn't."

"They made a successful reality-television show, but the cost was high for some of us," she told Insider.

Agreed Mitchell, "It was very traumatic."

Added Pearce, "I was 19. Technically, it was legal. But we were children."

More than a decade after The Glee Project's run, Pearce said she does not "hold any hatred or harbor any resentment," but she did note that she still gets hate mail and harassment over the kissing incident with Mitchell.

"It's easy to think, 'Well, you knew what you signed up for,' but we were children," she said. "We all signed this contract but had no idea what that fine print actually meant."

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Representatives for Murphy, Oxygen, Fox Entertainment and Embassy Row (The Glee Project's production company) did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.