Beanie Feldstein to Lea Michele: I Don't Know Her

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | October 14, 2021 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | October 14, 2021 |

Actress, singer, and total cinnamon roll Beanie Feldstein is having a moment right now. While she’s wooing critics with her performance as Monica Lewinsky in Impeachment: American Crime Story, she just landed the ultimate role in musical theater. Next year, Beanie will play none other than Fanny Brice in a new revival of Funny Girl, a part famously originated by Barbra Streisand. It was a casting announcement that delighted the internet. What a perfect choice and one that came as something of a surprise, albeit in the most wonderful way.

But the announcement also inspired many jokes at the expense of someone else. Beanie’s name trended worldwide on Twitter, but so did Lea Michele’s. The former Glee star, the one with one of the worst reputations on stage and screen, has made no secret of the fact that her dream role was Fanny Brice. Indeed, she sang many Funny Girl numbers on Glee and landed the role in a Broadway revival. Dunking on Michele is a treasured internet past-time thanks to her well-known rudeness, bullying, and diva behavior. Her former co-star Samantha Ware called her out last year for making her first TV gig ‘a living hell’ and threatening to ‘shit in [her] wig.’ The floodgates then opened, with everyone from Amber Riley to Willam to Alex Newell leaping to Ware’s support. Michele issued a non-apology then quietly went away. She has notably not returned to Broadway since Spring Awakening.

Feldstein was asked about the Michele trending spree this week on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy, and she explained how confusing it was.

‘I didn’t know that any of this was happening by the way. And all of a sudden people started explaining it to me, and I was like: Wait, what’s happening? She very sweetly wrote on my Instagram. I don’t know the woman whatsoever, but…’

Cohen interjected to say that it was a ‘happy’ interaction between the two. I think Feldstein is too much of a sweetie-pie to be truly shady, but this still made us guffaw. She’s clearly talking about not knowing Michele in real life but come on, your mind went to Mariah Carey too, didn’t it?

A ‘source’ told People that Michele had ultimately turned down the role of Fanny Bride when Ryan Murphy had acquired the rights to mount a revival. The rights then fell to director Michael Mayer, who worked with Michele in Spring Awakening, and he wanted to take the character in a ‘different direction.’ Uh-huh, okay, source that totally wasn’t Lea Michele.