Lea Michele Got Candid About Her Behavior on the Set of 'Glee'

Lea Michele is currently starring on Broadway in the revival of Funny Girl, a performance met with near-universal praise and box office records. But before returning to Broadway, Michele found herself on the outs of Hollywood because of alleged past behavior on the set of Glee coming to light.

During the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, one of Michele's former cast mates on the hit Ryan Murphy show, Samantha Ware, accused Michele of making her life "a living hell" while filming and threatened to "shit" in her wig. Other former colleagues, like Heather Morris, have also came forward with their own stories of Michele's on-set bullying and alleged racism.

Now during an interview with Jeremy O. Harris for Interview, Michele is opening up about her growth and reflection during the last few years.

"I think these past two years have been so important for everybody to just sit back and reflect," she said. "I did a lot of personal reach-outs. But the most important thing was for everybody to just take a step back. More than anything, I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to apply the things that I've learned over the past ten-plus years in a positive way."

"What I told myself stepping into Funny Girl was, 'If I can't take my role as a leader off-stage as important as my role as a leader onstage, then I shouldn't do this show,'" she continued. "Because that was always a struggle for me. So, to have this opportunity now at 36 years old as a wife and a mother — to step into this job that comes with so much pressure and a huge amount of responsibility — was a very, very big achievement for me."

The actress and singer adds that she thinks Funny Girl is the perfect opportunity for her to show others who she has grown into now as opposed to the person who made those mistakes on the set of Glee.

"The conversations that I've had behind the scenes with some people were incredibly healing and very eye-opening for me," she said. "I've been doing this for a really long time and I'm not going to ever blame anything on the things that I've been through in my life. But you also can't ignore those experiences or deny them. They are a part of the patchwork of my life. When I got the call that I was going to play Fanny Brice, I said, 'OK, this could be really big for my career, but it's also helpful to have this opportunity to introduce people to who I am now.'"