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Kate Hudson is reminiscing on her time on Glee. The star sat down with Glee star Jenna Ushkowitz on the newest episode of her Sibling Revelry, which the Almost Famous actress hosts with her brother Oliver Hudson. “It was a very dramatic set,” Kate recalled of the hit Fox series. “Well, you know, when you’ve […]
The cast of Glee has the best early Christmas gift for fans this year: a previously unreleased song sung by the late Naya Rivera, out now on streaming services.
Titled “Prayer for the Broken,” the posthumous record – which Rivera recorded in 2012 – arrived Friday (Dec. 1) as a special bonus for this year’s Snixxmas, an annual charity event hosted by Rivera’s friends and former co-stars Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz. The fundraiser, which has been held every year since the Sorry Not Sorry author died in 2020, benefits Alexandria House in L.A., an organization Rivera supported that provides shelter and vital services to women and children in need.
Produced by Isaac Hasson, who co-wrote the ballad with Lindy Robbins, “Prayer for the Broken” finds Rivera’s striking voice soaring over piano and ethereal background vocals provided by her Glee castmates McHale, Ushkowitz, Amber Riley, Heather Morris, Vanessa Lengies and Ashley Fink, according to Variety. The cover art is a simple but stunning headshot of the “Sorry” singer.
McHale and Ushkowitz unveiled this year’s Snixxmas surprise with help from E!’s Keltie Knight, who interviewed the And That’s What You REALLY Missed podcast co-hosts for E! News. “We wanted to do something to honor her, [and] put out something positive from such a horrible, horrible event,” McHale said of their annual fundraiser.
The pair went on to explain that they got special permission to release “Prayer for the Broken” in Rivera’s honor. “It’s just a really special song now that we’ll have, and that more importantly the fans will have, to be able to hear her voice again,” added Ushkowitz.
Rivera, who was best known for playing Santana Lopez on Ryan Murphy’s famed high-school musical dramedy series, died at 33 in June 2020 in an accidental drowning at Lake Piru, Calif. She was first reported missing after staff found her then 4-year-old son Josey sleeping alone on a boat she’d rented but never returned. After a days-long search, her body was found and recovered from the lake.
Stream “Prayer for the Broken” by Naya Rivera featuring her friends from Glee below:
When the opportunity presented itself for actress Heather Morris to make a bold statement while on the SAG-AFTRA picket line, she certainly took it — and honored late Glee co-star Naya Rivera while doing it. In a post to her Instagram account on Wednesday (Aug. 23), Morris shared photos of herself and a number of […]
When Idina Menzel first appeared on Glee in 2010 as Rachel Berry’s mother Shelby Corcoran, she was 38 years old while actress Lea Michele was 23. Menzel is now reflecting on her motherly acting role in a new interview with Stellar Magazine (via The New York Post). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, […]
It’s been exactly a decade since the world lost Cory Monteith. And to mark the anniversary of his passing, Lea Michele posted a beautiful tribute to her late co-star and then-boyfriend on Instagram. “Hey you. 10 years,” the Funny Girl actress wrote Thursday (July 13), captioning an old black-and-white photo of her posing cheek to […]
Jenna Ushkowitz and Harry Shum Jr. had a lot of make out scenes as Tina Cohen-Chang and Mike Chang on Glee, and now the duo is revealing a funny tidbit about the behind-the-scenes of all those smooches. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The actors revealed on a new episode […]
To love Glee is to know that the hit Fox TV series is haunted by several startling tragedies. Most notably, the high-profile deaths of stars Cory Monteith, who passed away from an accidental drug overdose in 2013, Mark Salling, who died by suicide in 2018 after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography, and Naya Rivera, who suffered a drowning accident in 2020.
This phenomenon is the basis for Investigation Discovery’s new docuseries, The Price Of Glee. Airing roughly eight years after Glee wrapped in 2015, the project chronicles the untimely deaths of both cast and crew members and details behind-the-scenes moments of alleged tension and drama, beginning with a fitting quote about the show from creator Ryan Murphy: “What started off as being such a great celebration of love and acceptance ultimately became about darkness and death.”
It’s important to note that neither Murphy nor any of the main cast are involved in the three-part documentary, which premiered Monday (Jan. 16) on ID and is available for streaming on Discovery+ that same day. In fact, some of the former New Directioners have denounced the docuseries altogether.
Kevin McHale, who played Artie Abrams, likened it to trash, and in December told In Touch that he and his castmates had “nothing to do with it.” Chord Overstreet, who played Sam Evans, called it “bulls–t” on the Elvis Duran radio show.
This was the nice version, ftr. Don’t make me speak on this again.— Kevin McHale (@druidDUDE) December 10, 2022
The stories that are included in The Price of Glee come from various crew members and some actors who served as stand-ins for the main cast. Rivera’s father, George Rivera, is also featured in the doc, as are a couple of Cory Monteith’s former friends — one of whom is Stephen Kramer Glickman, a supporting actor on Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush, who claimed to have befriended Monteith while their respective shows were filming near each other.
Keep reading to see nine of the biggest revelations from The Price of Glee.
Lea Michele and Darren Criss reunited Thursday (Dec. 22) for a very special Christmas edition of Apple TV+’s Carpool Karaoke.
In a bonus clip shared to YouTube, Criss takes the wheel as his former Glee co-star delivers her single “Christmas in New York,” from her 2019 holiday album Christmas in the City. “Rockefeller’s covered in the lights/ Families are playing on the ice/ From Harlem to the Battery/ Every corner’s bustling/ Suddenly it’s Christmas in New York,” she sings over her pal’s hilarious commentary (“You’re flat, you’re flat… I sounded better”).
Next, Criss dusts off “Christmas Dance,” an original tune from his own holiday album, 2021’s A Very Darren Crissmas. “So play a song that makes us make out when it snows/ A holly jolly one that everybody knows/ It goes, ‘Get up, get down, well come on it’s Christmas’/ Rocking around, well come on it’s Christmastime/ Time to really take a chance/ Can I ask, may I have this Christmas/ May I have this Christmas dance?” he croons before teaching Michele the step-by-step dance moves on the song’s bridge.
While filming the episode, Michele and Criss jammed out between takes to the Glee favorite “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, which they posted in an adorable video on the former’s TikTok. In October, the American Crime Story actor also visited his pal backstage at Funny Girl on Broadway, where she’s currently breaking box-office records as leading lady Fanny Brice.
Watch Michele and Criss go caroling around New York City in Carpool Karaoke below.
Investigation Discovery dropped the teaser for its upcoming docuseries The Price of Glee on Thursday (Dec. 8) and in the clip, Naya Rivera‘s father breaks his silence on his daughter’s tragic death.
The preview lays out the history of the cast behind the ultra-popular Fox musical series, including the deaths of Cory Monteith, Mark Salling and Rivera in, respectively, 2013, 2018 and 2020.
“Three major cast members dead?” one interviewee says in the video, while another adds, “I don’t want to say the C-word, the ‘curse’ word, but that’s where your mind goes.”
Rivera’s father looks back on her success and the popularity she found playing fan-favorite character Santana Lopez over the show’s six seasons. “I knew that was the top of the mountain for Naya,” he says in his confessional. “For your kid, it was just surreal.”
He gives one more sound bite, declaring, “Fame can be poisonous,” though the context for his statement isn’t immediately clear in the moment. Later, the teaser cuts to a clip of the press conference held after Rivera’s body was found in California’s Lake Piru, where she drowned in July 2020. “She mustered enough energy to get her son back onto the boat. But not enough to save herself,” a law enforcement officer giving a press conference explained at the time.
The trailer also touches on Monteith’s death from an accidental drug overdose in the middle of filming Glee’s fifth season, as well as Salling pleading guilty to possession of child pornography and his subsequent suicide before he could be sentenced to any jail time.
In March, Rivera’s family settled their wrongful death lawsuit with Ventura County.
The Price of Glee premieres Jan. 16 on Investigation Discovery and can also be streamed on Discovery+. Watch the teaser below.
Amber Riley stopped by Ziwe on Wednesday (Dec. 7) and spilled some tea about Lea Michele and her time on the set of Glee.
The Dancing With the Stars season 17 champ weathered Ziwe’s trademark style of awkward questioning with grace during the sit-down, but that didn’t stop the host from trying to get to the bottom of her take on working with Michele — starting with asking Riley if there was a “race war” on Glee.
“Now speaking of getting down in the muck, you said that one of your famous co-workers wasn’t racist. Did you mean that she was?” Ziwe asked, leading Riley to burst into uncomfortable laughter before dodging the question by responding “Next question? I don’t even know how to answer that. Umm … I don’t know which co-worker you’re talking about — I’ve had so many.”
Undeterred, Ziwe conveniently had a clip of Riley’s pandemic-era interview regarding the headline-making allegations that Michele bullied cast member Samantha Ware on the set of the FOX musical series. (“I am not going to say that Lea Michele is racist,” she insisted in the clip, though the Funny Girl star’s first name was bleeped out in the replay.)
“Would you say that your famous co-worker doesn’t see race and is, in fact, rude to all of her co-workers?” the host asked as a follow-up, and this time Riley gave more of a straightforward answer.
“I think that she would probably say that she doesn’t see race, but as we discussed earlier, everyone does,” she responded before laughingly denying that her 2014 single “Colorblind” was about Michele.
Billboard has reached out to Michele for comment.
Later in the interview, Riley also got real about some of the macro- and micro-aggressions she’s dealt with in Hollywood, revealing that she’s been on the receiving end of many an inappropriate comment from other actors in the hair and makeup trailer. “‘Oh your hair … so interesting! Oh wow, can I touch it?’ Like, a lot of that,” she said.
Most recently, the newly engaged star took home the trophy as the Harp on Season 8 of The Masked Singer, becoming the first and only to win both the FOX singing competition and DWTS.
Watch Riley’s interview with Ziwe above.
