Ed O’Neill Did Not Verbally Slap Jane Lynch, Okay

TV Guide Canada published a quote they say came out of Ed O’Neill’s mouth about how he feels his Modern Family TV wife Sofia Vergara should’ve won the Emmy instead of Jane Lynch for Glee. The quote went a little something like this: “I love Jane, honestly I do. I’m dying to star in one of Christopher Guest’s movies alongside her, but I don’t think she should have gotten the Emmy for that part. [Sue Sylvester] is just a one-note character.”

When it got back to Jane Lynch’s ears (or eyes), she responded with a simple: “Let it go, that’s what we’re doing.” But it turns out, it didn’t come out of Ed O’Neill’s mouth like that. Either somebody was drunk (most likely) or a Sue Sylvester-hating force transcribed the interview, because TV Guide Canada issued a retraction and published the real quote:

“I’m one of Jane Lynch’s biggest fans. I love Jane Lynch. She is a genius. But at the same time I said ‘Sophia could win’ because … and I’ve only seen Glee a couple of … I’ve only seen Glee once. But I thought Jane’s role is rather one-dimensional. It’s kind of strident. It’s always kind of the same. I’ve seen her be much better. So I thought ‘Sofia’s funnier,’ and I think she is in these two comparative roles. Anyway, Jane won. But I was hoping that Sophia would.”

And Ed tried to clear it up some more by saying these words to EW:

“Last week I spoke to a group of journalists and one quoted me supposedly saying of Jane Lynch, ‘I don’t think she should have gotten the Emmy for that part.’ I never said those words and transcripts of the press conference attest to that fact. Of course I root for my dear friends Sofia Vergara and Julie Bowen (and all of my colleagues on our show) at Emmy time, but I absolutely never said, nor do I believe that Jane — whom I think is an enormous talent — was undeserving of the award. I reached out to her yesterday to ensure she knew I’d been misquoted but I wanted to clear this up publicly as well.”

But Ed still said Jane’s character was one-dimensional and that she’s done better work… Okay, okay, I’ll drop the ladle and stop stirring the pot filled with this non-story. We can go all go back to sitting on the couch with our hand in our safe place.