Lea Michelle has come out to render an apology to her colleague stars who felt mistreated by her on different productions.
Over the weekend, Lea tweeted using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in solidarity with the present protest in the United States following the murder of African-American George Floyd. Chancing on the tweet, Lea’s former ‘Glee’ co-star Samantha Ware replied accusing Lea of ‘traumatic microaggressions’.
“REMEMBER WHEN YOU MADE MY FIRST TELEVISON GIG A LIVING HELL?!?!” Ware wrote. “CAUSE ILL NEVER FORGET. I BELIEVE YOU TOLD EVERYONE THAT IF YOU HAD THE OPPORTUNITY YOU WOULD “(expletive) IN MY WIG!” AMONGST OTHER TRAUMATIC MICROAGRESSIONS THAT MADE ME QUESTION A CAREER IN HOLLYWOOD.”
Responding to the tweet, other cast mates of the musical high school drama including Amber Riley, Alex Newell and Yvette Nicole Brown of ‘The Mayor’, which starred Lea appeared on the platform, sharing videos and making statements that agrees with Ware’s accusations.
Riley shared GIFs of herself raising her hands and sipping tea without uttering a word, while Newell shared a GIF of RuPaul using a pair of binoculars. Brown on the other hand replied Ware’s tweet, “felt every one of those capital letters.”
Earlier this morning, Lea took to her 6.3 million Instagram handle to clarify the concerns raised from the reactions of her former cast mates regarding her tweet to support BLM.
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.” When I tweeted the other day, it was meant to be a show of support for our friends and neighbors and communities of color during this really difficult time, but the responses I received to what I posted have made me also focus specifically on how my own behavior towards fellow cast members was perceived.”
She however denied recalling passing the exact comment Ware claims she made regarding her ‘wig’, “While I don’t remember ever making this specific statement, 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 being unnecessarily difficult, I apologize,” she added.
Ware’s revelation is gradually causing Lea not only explanations and apologies but also drawing needed response from companies she works with. One of them is the German-owned HelloFresh, which doubles as one of the largest meal-kit providers in the US. The company released a statement following Twitter users’ questions on their association with Lea, “HelloFresh does not condone racism nor discrimination of any kind,” the company wrote.
