On September 17th, Lea Michele, currently Funny Girl’s leading lady on Broadway, posted her first ever TikTok. Needless to say, it blew up immediately.
Lea Michele is a child Broadway star who’s true claim to fame is from the well known Fox comedy, Glee. On the show, Michele played your typical overly confident theater kid, Rachel Berry. We could spend hours unpacking the character that is Ms.Rachel Berry but that is for another day.
The rumors about Michele being a “horrible person” or “hard to work with” will not be addressed today, as that is another whole layer to unpack separately.
Before we get into the pop culture event that is Lea Michele’s TikToks, we have to address the famous rumors.
Since 2018, rumors have been circulating all over the internet that Michele cannot read. Many people have provided what they consider “proof” from interviews, or videos with friends. The rumor however has never been proven as fact.
Michele recently addressed the rumor in an seemingly offended and defensive tone in a New York Times article discussing her new role in Broadway’s “Funny Girl.”
Michele stated, “I went to ‘Glee’ every single day; I knew my lines every single day. And then there’s a rumor online that I can’t read or write? It’s sad. It really is. I think often if I were a man, a lot of this wouldn’t be the case.”
Now that we’ve got the background covered it’s time to move on to the groundbreaking event that was Lea Michele posting on TikTok.
Michele posted her first ever TikTok on Saturday, September 17th. The TikTok was a duet from another user, @javidrod305. The original TikTok was a video to a spliced audio of Lea Michele singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from her time on Glee, with applause between every phrase. The text over the video stated “Lea Michele on opening night of Funny Girl,” the video itself featured the user lip syncing to the audio, pausing for the applause and “waving to the people in the crowd.”
Michele then duetted this video, copying the movements the original user made. Her caption was “Clearly I can’t wait to get back to @funnygrlbwy next week.”
(Michele is currently on a ten day break from her Funny Girl run due to a case of COVID-19.)
The comment section immediately blew up after the posting of this TikTok. The most popular comments included:
@mitskionafriday: “was wondering why she wasn’t responding to comments then i remembered”
@rhi.a.annon: “just wait till she hears these comments”
@colbystired: hi lea!! translated: 👋🏻😊
All these comments are referring to the aforementioned rumor that Michele cannot read.
The tables turned on September 18th, when Michele took the joking into her own hands.
Michele posted a video lip syncing to a popular TikTok audio of Kim Kardashians voice. The audio says, “Hey, it’s amazing but can you talk for a sec?” in a seemingly upset voice. The text over Michele’s TikTok stated “Calling Jonathan to read me the comments on my first TikTok”
Michele captioned the post, “lol 😉🤪😌.”
The “Jonathan” she is referring to in the TikTok is none other than Jonathan Groff, her co star from “Spring Awakening” on Broadway, Glee, and also her personal “bestie.” Groff is also widely known for his role of Kristoff in the Disney movie “Frozen.”
In the past, all of Michele’s responses to the rumors about her being illiterate have been on the defensive side, and seem to show some hurt behind them. Michele turned the tables this time by making a joke herself about the rumors.
This TikTok continued to blow up even more than her first one, gaining 1.5 million likes in 22 hours. Her previous TikTok had only received around 550,000 likes.
The comments on this post also did not disappoint. Some of the most popular comments were:
@kickinitwkaleigh: “This is funny girl”
@itscaitlinhello: “LEA NO YOU DID NOTTTT I AM SCREAMING”
@mymomsaidnosorry: “LEA THIS IS WHAT THE PEOPLE WANTED THANK YOU!!!!”
While this cannot be considered Michele confirming the rumors that she is illiterate, it does make the joke even more laughable. With most memes and rumors, they seem to gain more traction and reactions once the person or thing they are about responds, which is exactly what Michele has done.
We can only guess where this rumor will go from here, or what Michele will say next, but we can hope that whatever it is will continue to be funny. After all, she is the “Funny Girl” on Broadway…
