Original Glee cast member Kevin McHale is singing no praises about an upcoming new docuseries about the show.
The Price of Glee, set to premiere Jan. 16 on Investigation Discovery and Discovery+, focuses on the legacy and controversies surrounding the Fox musical comedy, as well as the deaths of cast members Cory Monteith, Naya Rivera and Mark Salling. According to Deadline, key cast and crew members share on the docuseries first-hand stories of their time on Glee.
“Show me this ‘cast’ you speak of,” McHale, who played Artie Abrams on the show, tweeted Dec. 9. “This is [wastebasket emoji].”
The actor added, “This was the nice version, ftr. Don’t make me speak on this again.”
E! News has reached out to Warner Bros. Discovery for comment about McHale’s remarks and has not heard back.
Jenna Ushkowitz, who played Artie’s love interest Tina Cohen-Chang on Glee, responded to McHale’s last tweet with a grimacing face emoji.
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The two co-host the Glee rewatch podcast And That’s What You Really Missed. In November, the actors briefly touched upon the new docuseries in an interview with BuzzFeed.
“In terms of the Discovery+ documentary, it feels even more important, to me at least, to do the podcast because we were the ones who were there,” Ushkowitz told the outlet. “And we were the ones experiencing this. And we know what really happened. So you know, for me, it feels even more pertinent to actually be the ones to share our experience when people are sharing experiences that they didn’t have.”
McHale added, “I also think the other reason why we wanted to do this was that with the pandemic and TikTok, there has been this weird resurgence of Glee. A whole new generation of people has been finding it. Like, children, who were not alive when the show started. We talked to [creator] Ryan [Murphy] about that, too, about just how cool and what an opportunity that is for people. They’re not necessarily attached to all of the, let’s say, drama, or the bad things people will talk about in the press because they’re just seeing this with new eyes.”
Fellow cast member Chord Overstreet also spoke about the new docuseries back in August. “I think anybody that knows anything about that show and experienced it doesn’t have anything to do with that from what I know,” he said on The Elvis Duran Show. “We’re all really close and pretty much like family. Nobody knows anything about that. I think it’s a little bit of like just trying to get people to watch something. I don’t think anybody really knows anything about it. I think it’s just like a tabloid thing trying to sell.”
McHale and Jenna starred on all six seasons of Glee, which ended in 2015. Overstreet joined in season two as Sam Evans. Monteith played their character’s friend Finn Hudson, and was also an original cast member. He died at age 31 of an accidental overdose in 2013.
In 2018, Salling, who played Noah “Puck” Puckerman on the show, died of suicide at 35 at while awaiting sentencing in a legal case to which he had pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography involving a prepubescent minor.
In 2020, on the seventh anniversary of Monteith’s death, Rivera, who played Santana Lopez on Glee, was confirmed dead of accidental drowning at 33 after a boating accident.
Her father, George Rivera, is featured in The Price of Glee docuseries. During his interview, he reflects on how the series impacted his late daughter’s life. “I knew that was the top of the mountain for Naya,” he says in the trailer, released Dec. 8. “For your kid, it was just surreal.”
If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
