The Shady Dig Jamie Lee Curtis Once Took At Lea Michele

Lea Michele is one of those celebrities who doesn't exactly have a shiny reputation. The "Glee" alum, who has since shifted her focus on Broadway, is often the butt of jokes on Twitter, because, according to fans, all those banters, no matter how harmless they appear to be, are well-deserved anyway. Why? Because they insist that Michele is a mean girl.

Their assumption isn't baseless, of course. In 2020, one of Michele's "Glee" co-stars, Samantha Marie Ware, tweeted that the star "made my first television gig a living hell." Heather Morris, who had a more prominent role on the show, later confirmed that Michele was indeed not a model co-worker. "Was she unpleasant to work with? Very much so; for Lea to treat others with the disrespect that she did for as long as she did, I believe she SHOULD be called out," Morris tweeted. And so, from then on, Michele started being the subject of memes and jokes online, with some going as far as claiming that she did not know how to read — something she took offense over. "It's sad. It really is. I think often if I were a man, a lot of this wouldn't be the case," she told The New York Times. Yet even then, the jokes persisted.

There was even a time when what seems to be the entire Twitterverse cheered on Jamie Lee Curtis for "shading" Michele. But did she?

During the height of the Lea Michele Twitter haterade, fans managed to get their hands on a snippet of her guesting on Jamie Lee Curtis' podcast, "Good Friend," along with her BFF, Jonathan Groff. 

In the clip, the trio was discussing Michele and Groff's experience starring on Broadway's "Spring Awakening," and how the show bagged a number of Tony Awards — none of which went to Michele directly. "Was the show nominated?" Curtis asked, to which Michele responded, "We won eight Tony awards." But Curtis went on to emphasize that Michele wasn't on the receiving end of them. "Yes, you did. But you didn't, Lea," she quipped, prompting laughs from all three. It was all said in jest, but fans found Curtis' remarks "savage," anyway.

To be fair to Curtis, it looks like she's a genuine fan of Michele. Months after the podcast episode dropped, she took to Instagram to share how amazed she was watching the "Spring Awakening: Those You've Known" documentary. "I AM STUNNED and MOVED by @leamichele and @grofffsauce and the entire cast and creators of @springawakeningmusical and the show on @hbo," she wrote.

As someone who lives and breathes theater, of course, Lea Michele wanted to at least clinch a Tony nomination. In the "Spring Awakening: Those You've Known" documentary, she even recalled going to church to pray for one. She and Jonathan Groff shared that on the night before the nominations were announced, they headed to the nearest church, with Groff donating $50 for extra measure. Funnily, he did get nominated.

"I was like, 'I didn't bring any money!' Michele recalled. "You're giving money to the church?" Groff then joked that Michele was "pissed" that he donated money, which she thinks is probably what got him a nom. "Sure enough, he got nominated, and I didn't," Michele added.

By the time her next Broadway project came in, Michele's whole stance had changed. In 2022, she replaced Beanie Feldstein on "Funny Girl," which means that she's automatically not eligible for a Tony due to not being the originating actor. But she insists it doesn't matter to her at all. "You might think that's the biggest piece of bull that I'm going to say to you all day," she told The New York Times. "But I really don't care about that at this point. It's just about being able to play this part."