Lea Michele celebrates Alex Newell's Tony Awards win years after Glee controversy
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Don't rain on their parade! Lea Michele reunited with Glee costar Alex Newell at the 2023 Tony Awards years after her former castmates accused of her abusive behavior and racist microaggressions.
It appears to be all love now as Michele shared a selfie with Newell, who became the first nonbinary performer to win Best Performance by Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical for Shucked, a comedy centered on a fictional Midwestern rural community amid a corn crisis, at the ceremony Sunday.
Michele, also on the Broadway circuit for her acclaimed turn as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, congratulated her former costar on Instagram.
Newell even re-shared the post on their Instagram Story, calling the reunion "a moment." They wrote, "I'm so happy we could share this season together! And thank you for celebrating me! Look how far we've come!"
In 2020, after Michele tweeted about the police killing of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, her former costar Samantha Ware accused her of making her life a "living hell" on set of Glee.
"I believe you told everyone that if you had the opportunity you would 'shit in my wig!' amongst other traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood," Ware, who portrayed Jane Hayward, tweeted, prompting replies from fellow alums Amber Riley, Heather Morris, and Newell.
"I'm gonna say this one time," Newell, who played Unique Adams, tweeted at the time. "When my friends [go] through something traumatic I also go through it… that's what friendship is… and if you can't understand that then you're part of the problem."
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images; Bruce Glikas/Getty Images Lea Michele; Alex Newell
Michele soon issued an apology on social media and vowed to "be better in the future." She wrote, "One of the most important lessons of the last few weeks is that we need to take the time to listen and learn about other people's perspectives and any role we have played or anything we can do to help address the injustices that they face."
"While I don't remember ever making this specific statement," Michele said of the "shit in my wig" comment, "and I have never judged others by their background or color of their skin, 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."
...and that's what you missed on Glee.
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