In 2009, Ryan Murphy’s musical TV collection Glee took the world by storm when it premiered on Fox.
The present rapidly catapulted its ensemble solid to superstardom, and its success culminated with 32 Emmy nominations, an Oprah Winfrey interview, two nationwide excursions, a 3D live performance film, and a collection of bestselling compilation albums.
The “curse” is used as a blanket time period for every little thing from the deaths of three solid members, to Melissa Benoist’s home abuse allegations towards Blake Jenner, her ex-husband and former costar.
And all of it has now been explored within the ID and Discovery+ docuseries The Price of Glee, which premiered Monday.
The three-part documentary consists of interviews with crew members, background actors, and shut family and friends members of the Glee solid — and they don’t maintain again with regards to opening up concerning the present.
Here is every little thing that we discovered from The Price of Glee.
Cory Monteith was 27 years previous when Glee premiered in 2009, with the actor enjoying highschool quarterback Finn Hudson within the present. In 2013, simply weeks earlier than filming for Glee’s fifth season was because of begin, Cory died of combined drug toxicity involving heroin and alcohol.
In the brand new documentary, a few of Cory’s shut associates element the affect that they imagine that Glee had on him and shed some new gentle on his expertise with dependancy.
Frederic Robinson, a good friend from Cory’s dwelling metropolis of Vancouver, says that Cory first began utilizing alcohol and medicines on the age of 13 following his mother and father’ divorce.
Throughout his teen years, the star would typically steal “large sums of cash” from his household, and when Cory was 19 his mother and associates staged an intervention that ended with him getting into a drug rehab program in 2001.
Frederic admits that Cory was apprehensive about his “past getting out” when he landed his function in Glee and that he wished to be “the good kid.” However, he was open about his dependancy with different individuals in his life.
At the top of the second season of Glee, Cory went public along with his historical past of substance abuse as he wished to be trustworthy with followers and “help others who perhaps were in that same situation to show them that you can come out on the other side and do well in life.”
But Cory started to battle as his star energy grew, and he even instructed his former roommate Justin Neill that he wouldn’t want fame on his worst enemy.
“There was a period where it seemed Cory was getting more and more isolated,” Justin reveals. “He simply obtained to the purpose the place he simply hated fame; ‘I’m simply so drained, I need to relaxation for a bit. I’m sick of singing of those songs,’ and I keep in mind him particularly saying, ‘I would not want fame on my worst enemy.'”
In spite of his struggles, it’s believed that Cory remained sober till shortly earlier than his demise. Dugg Kirkpatrick, head of the Glee hair division, claimed that it was one in all Cory’s costars who inspired him to start out ingesting once more.
While Dugg was reducing his hair, Cory confided in him that he had attended a celebration however resisted ingesting alcohol.
“But he was told by a certain cast member that same night, ‘You know what? If you want to have a drink, you should have a drink. I’ll be here. You can always trust that I’ll be here for you,'” Dugg recollects.
The hairstylist refuses to call which solid member stated this “because I wasn’t there, I didn’t hear the person say it.” He provides that Cory was “confused” by the remark and “resented” what had been stated.
According to Dugg, this comment “set him on a path to destruction” and that Cory began to drink once more “because he was given permission by somebody that he loved.”
Cory’s relationship along with his costar Lea Michele additionally comes underneath scrutiny on The Price of Glee, with the 2 putting up a romance in 2012 and remaining collectively till his demise the next 12 months.
Several crew members stated they had been “surprised” by the pairing, and remained uncertain whether or not Cory and Lea had been good for one another.
They additionally struggled with Lea’s choice to maintain filming after his demise, with the present’s creator largely leaving the choice as much as her.
She was given numerous choices, together with taking a hiatus and canceling the present altogether, however Lea selected for everyone to return to work simply two weeks after their costar had died.
Speaking to Ellen DeGeneres again in 2013, Lea recalled: “I said, ‘We have to go back to work.’ We have to. They’re my family,” however lots of the individuals interviewed in The Price of Glee didn’t assist her choice.
Naya Rivera’s stand-in, Jodi Tanaka, says within the docuseries: “It was only a couple of weeks. All of the actors had to just pull themselves together and get back to work. Everyone was just kind of forced to.”
Lea has been on the middle of a number of scandals since Glee got here to an finish in 2015, along with her former castmates talking out towards her and accusing her of bullying and racism.
In 2020, Samantha Ware stated that Lea made her life on set “a living hell,” and claimed that she threatened to “shit” in her wig along with a collection of different racial microaggressions.
Garrett Greer, an assistant to the chief director of Glee, fuels all of those claims on The Price of Glee. He manufacturers Lea a “narcissist” and alleges that there was “conflict” every time Lea felt that the quantity of “attention” she or her character acquired was underneath menace.
And Dabier Snell, who appeared in a Season 4 episode of Glee, recollects Lea banning him from sitting with the principle solid throughout their lunch break as a result of she didn’t assume that he belonged.
“After we had filmed that scene and clearly there was lunch, Darren [Criss] was like, ‘Yo, it is best to come by. All the solid members will most likely sit down.’ I used to be like, alright, cool. I used to be there perhaps 10 minutes after which I obtained pulled by any individual on set,” Dabier says.
“They were like, ‘Hey, Dab, can I talk to you for a minute?’ And I was like, yeah, sure. So, she goes, ‘Somebody specifically at the table doesn’t want you sitting there,'” he goes on. “And I was like, what? So, she was like, ‘I’m really sorry about that. It’s not about you. It’s just the person there doesn’t feel like you belong with the rest of the group.'”
Dabier requested the crew member if Lea was the wrongdoer and says that they made a wincing face earlier than nodding to verify. The visitor star concludes: “Like, wow, I actually simply obtained pulled due to my standing on the present. I’ve by no means actually skilled something like that, even in a highschool setting.”
Naya’s dad, George, additionally says that Lea was the one individual that his late daughter had “trouble with” at work, saying that they “hated” one another. He additionally alleges that Naya was briefly let go from Glee after she complained about Lea to manufacturing.
Naya was 22 years previous when she was solid as Santana Lopez in Glee, and she or he tragically died from drowning in 2020. Her physique was found after her 4-year-old son, Josey, was discovered alone on a ship.
Josey instructed investigators that he and his mother had been swimming, however after she’d helped him again on the boat, she wasn’t in a position to pull herself as much as security.
Speaking on The Price of Glee, Naya’s father recollects speaking to his daughter by way of FaceTime shortly earlier than her demise — and the way he’d tried to warn her to be secure on the water.
George says that he had a “sinking feeling” regardless that he knew that Naya had lots of boating expertise and was a powerful swimmer. He says: “I used to be FaceTiming along with her making an attempt to speak her by way of the pitfalls of making an attempt to anchor your boat. First of all, I stated, ‘Naya, you are on a pontoon boat, that is not a ship… Why are you on a pontoon boat?'”
“I said, ‘Do not jump off that effin’ boat. If you’ve got an anchor, you can anchor it, but do you know how to anchor it? We went through a couple iterations like that and then the FaceTime call hung up, and that was the last time I talked to her,” he goes on.
George additionally admits that he instantly feared the worst and “had no hope” when he obtained a name from authorities about Naya.
“I knew immediately when I got the phone call in Knoxville that it was over with,” he explains. “You don’t find a drifting 5-year-old child asleep on a boat at the end of a lake without his mother and have any hope. I had no hope.”
Mark Salling starred as Noah “Puck” Puckerman on all six seasons of Glee. Just months after the present ended, he was arrested on the suspicion of possessing baby sexual abuse supplies after one in all his ex-girlfriends tipped off the police.
The actor finally pleaded responsible to the cost of receiving and possessing baby sexual abuse supplies, with it reported that he had 25,000 pictures and movies. In 2018, Mark was discovered lifeless by suicide.
In the docuseries, it’s maintained that Mark’s crimes had been an enormous shock to the individuals who labored on Glee, though some crew members admit that he all the time appeared totally different to the remainder of the solid.
“He was quieter, for sure, and kept to himself because I think he felt more of an adult than the others,” set decorator Barbara Munch remembers. “He just was, you know, a bit off. He wasn’t just a regular young man. He had some issues going on, it seemed obvious.”
While the deaths of Cory, Naya, and Mark are extensively identified to the general public, The Price of Glee additionally attracts consideration to the truth that a number of crew members died throughout filming.
J.A. Byerly and his brother Mitchell each labored on Glee as rigging crew, and he shares his perception that his brother’s demise by suicide was a direct results of the calls for of the present.
“On the rigging crew, you’re consistently working every day. Most of our time playing cards are at 72 hours,” Byerly says. “We don’t win the Oscars, we don’t win the Emmys, but we’re the ones who make it happen. The intenseness of the show, I think, got to my brother.”
In addition to Mitchell, manufacturing assistant Nancy Motes additionally died by suicide, and Jim Fuller — who was in control of the second crew and background actors — died after he had a coronary heart assault on the age of 41.
A “lead prop guy” named Paul additionally died when he had a coronary heart assault whereas jogging, and one of many “main stand-ins” who labored with solid member Matthew Morrison died immediately. Details of his demise stay unknown, however it’s thought to have been associated to a “car fire.”
Director of pictures Christopher Baffa says of the string of deaths: “This was a big set, a lot of people… But to lose so many people, so quickly, you see a pattern forming there that to me is still unbelievable. Was that Glee or just the industry? I don’t know.”
Glee’s most important solid members are notably lacking from The Price of Glee, and a few of them beforehand shared their discomfort with the docuseries being made.
Kevin McHale branded the present trash earlier than telling In Touch Weekly: “Us and all of our friends have nothing to do with it, so we’ll see what happens.”
“We’re not really associated with it,” Jenna Ushkowitz added to the publication.
They haven’t publicly commented on the present because it premiered.