Samantha Ware Talked About Why She Shared Her Lea Michele Horror Stories

I’m sure Lea Michele really wishes the fact that she’s HEAVILY PREGNANT (Rebekah Vardy stays a messy legend) will encourage all the people who have accused her of treating them like dirt (or in some instances, like cockroaches) to cut her some slack during this difficult time of self-reflection and personal growth. But alas, the hits just keep coming. Former Glee cast member Samantha Ware recently spoke to Variety about being the catalyst for the Great Lea Michele Reckoning we didn’t know we needed, and explained why she decided now was the time to tell the world that Lea once threatened to shit in her wig. She also expanded on her interactions with Lea on the set of Glee. Sorry little fetus, you better cover your ears.

The good news is that Samantha says she’s not calling Lea a racist. Just a passive aggressive prima-donna with “racist tendencies” who “suffers from a symptom of living in this world in an industry that is tailored to white people.” According to Samantha, Lea was nasty right out the gate.

“I knew from day one when I attempted to introduce myself. There was nothing gradual about it. As soon as she decided that she didn’t like me, it was very evident. It was after I did my first performance, that’s when it started – the silent treatment, the stare-downs, the looks, the comments under her breath, the weird passive aggressiveness. It all built up.”

Samantha went on to describe another on-set incident where Lea reprimanded her in front of the entire cast and crew, and threatened to call Ryan Murphy to have her fired. It should be noted that while Samantha was new to TV, she had already applied her talents as Nala in The Lion King in Las Vegas, and starred in The Book of Mormon on Broadway. So it’s not like Samantha was some wide-eyed rube.

“When you’re shooting a scene, sometimes the camera is on you and sometimes it’s not, but you still have to be in the scene,” Ware says. “The camera wasn’t on us, so it’s not like we had to give a full throttle performance, but apparently, I was goofing around when the camera wasn’t on me, and she took that as me being disrespectful to her.”

Ware says no one voiced any concern with her, not even the director of the episode, so she was shocked when Michele called her out and reprimanded her.

“She waited until the scene was over and she stopped in the middle of the stage and did a ‘come here’ gesture, like how a mother does to their child,” Ware explains.

Michele demanded, “You need to come here right now,” according to Ware, who says she politely refused to walk to the center of the stage because she was already publicly humiliated in front of a crowd of extras and dancers. “I said ‘no,’ and that’s when she decided to threaten my job, and said she would call Ryan Murphy in to come and fire me.”

Samantha says that she was afraid for her job after that (Variety says Ryan was no longer involved in the day to day by then), and that when she decided to confront Lea about the incident, Lea told her to shut her mouth, and that she didn’t deserve the job. And where’s Ryan now? Crickets. No, what’s the silence you hear when even the crickets stop? Prior to Lea’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, Ryan had teased two projects featuring Lea. In May he commented on Twitter that he was working on a 3rd season of Scream Queens, and a couple of weeks after that, he posted on Instagram that he wanted to shoot a do-over pilot of Glee “where frenemies Lea Michele and [Ben] Platt ‘join forces to dethrone’ [Beanie] Feldstein’s character.”

NEWS: Ryan Murphy has deleted a comment on Instagram that said he is “working on” #ScreamQueens season 3. The future of the series is now uncertain following the accusations made against Lea Michele. pic.twitter.com/QWOtRHzbzr

— #BringBackScreamQueens (@sqnewsupdates) June 11, 2020

Ryan Murphy has deleted both of his posts about the “GLEE” reboot from his Instagram account, signalling that the project is likely dead! #GLEE pic.twitter.com/2BsjHHy3gM

— AHS News (@theahsnews) June 11, 2020

And I oop! The choicest morsel in this scrumptious Lea Michele roast is that countless co-workers have gleefully (*Glee!*) piled on, yet only a couple have come to her defense (Iqbal Theba and Dean Geyer).

Here’s what Samantha had to say about why she spoke up now, despite the fact that Lea is HEAVILY PREGNANT.

“It shouldn’t have to take my tweet. When you tweet, “Black lives matter,” that would mean you have an understanding of what that hashtag means, but it’s clear that it doesn’t,” Ware says. “Does Lea even know what a microaggression is? I don’t know. All that her apology did was affirm that she hasn’t learned anything. Am I calling Lea a racist? No. Does Lea have racist tendencies? I think Lea suffers from a symptom of living in this world in an industry that is tailored to white people.”

Variety says that “Ware is doing what she can to promote equality by using her voice” and along with fellow ex-Glee cast-mate Amber Riley, who also spoke out about Lea’s behavior, has “launched a social media movement with the hashtag #unMUTEny, which encourages people of color who have felt silenced within the workplace to share their stories.” Look, it’s not going to rid the world of racism in one fell swoop like the #ITakeResponsibility PSA is sure to do, but it’s a start.

@Sammie_Ware you are a superhero, your @Variety article made me feel liberated! I know you’re getting some hate, but you have my support sis. #UnMUTEny keep telling your stories everyone ✊🏾

— Amber Patrice Riley (@MsAmberPRiley) June 12, 2020

Pic: Wenn.com