Lea Michele Apologizes To Glee Costars For Being ‘Unnecessarily Difficult’ And Causing ‘Pain’

Lea Michele issued a lengthy apology on Wednesday morning, after “Glee” costar Samantha Ware criticized her behavior on set when they worked together.

“One of the most important lessons of the last few weeks is that we need to take the time to listen and learn about other people’s perspectives and any role we have played or anything we can do to help address the injustices that they face,” she wrote on Instagram. “When I tweeted the other day, it was meant to be a show of support for our friends and neighbors and communities of color during this really difficult time, but the responses I received to what I posted have made me also focus specifically on how my own behavior towards fellow cast members was perceived by them.”

In Ware’s original post, she took issue with Lea sharing support of the Black Lives Matter movement on Twitter due to her own interactions with her. “Remember when you made my first television gig a living hell?” she wrote on Monday night in response to Michele’s tweet. “I believe you told everyone that if [you] had the opportunity you would ‘shit in my wig!’ amongst [sic] traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood.”

In her apology, Michele didn’t remember the incident Ware brought up, but copped to bad behavior on set.

“While I don’t remember ever making this specific statement and I have never judged others by their background or color of their skin, that’s not really the point, what matters is that I clearly acted in ways which hurt other people,” she continued. “Whether it was my privileged position and perspective that caused me to be perceived as insensitive or inappropriate at times or whether it was just my immaturity and me just being unnecessarily difficult, I apologize for my behavior and for any pain which I have caused.”

“We all can grow and change and I have definitely used these past several months to reflect on my own shortcomings,” she went on. “I am a couple of months from becoming a mother and I know I need to keep working to better myself and take responsibility for my actions, so that I can be a real role model for my child and so I can pass along my lessons and mistakes, so that they can learn from me.”

In closing, she added, “I listened to these criticisms and I am learning and while I am very sorry, I will be better in the future from this experience.”

Ware’s comment drew support from fellow costars Alex Newell, Melissa Benoist and Amber Riley, who all cosigned her feelings by either liking her tweets or sharing some of their own.