Kevin McHale, original Glee cast member who played Artie Abrams in the hit series, isn’t happy with the upcoming new docuseries, The Price of Glee.
The docuseries about the famous series will premier on Investigation Discovery and Discovery+ on January 16. It focuses on Glee’s legacy and controversies, including the deaths of its three cast members, Cory Monteith, Mark Salling, and Naya Rivera. Deadline reported that some cast and crew members are sharing first-hand stories of the time when they were still working on the Fox musical comedy.
On December 9, McHale tweeted, “Show me this ‘cast’ you speak of. This is [wastebasket emoji].”
He added, “This was the nice version, ftr. Don’t make me speak on this again.”
Meanwhile, Jenna Ushkowitz, who played Tina Cohen-Chang and Artie’s love interest in the series, responded with a grimacing face emoji, to his last tweet.
The two original Glee cast members were interviewed by BuzzFeed in November about the new docuseries.
“In terms of the Discovery+ documentary, it feels even more important, to me at least, to do the podcast because we were the ones who were there,” Ushkowitz said. “And we were the ones experiencing this. And we know what really happened. So you know, for me, it feels even more pertinent to actually be the ones to share our experience when people are sharing experiences that they didn’t have.”
McHale added, “I also think the other reason why we wanted to do this was that with the pandemic and TikTok, there has been this weird resurgence of Glee. A whole new generation of people has been finding it. Like, children, who were not alive when the show started. We talked to [creator] Ryan [Murphy] about that, too, about just how cool and what an opportunity that is for people. They’re not necessarily attached to all of the, let’s say, drama, or the bad things people will talk about in the press because they’re just seeing this with new eyes.”
In August, Chord Overstreet, who played Sam Evans in Glee, shared on The Elvis Duran Show about the new docuseries, “I think anybody that knows anything about that show and experienced it doesn’t have anything to do with that from what I know. We’re all really close and pretty much like family. Nobody knows anything about that. I think it’s a little bit of like just trying to get people to watch something. I don’t think anybody really knows anything about it. I think it’s just like a tabloid thing trying to sell.”
The docuseries also featured the deaths of three of Glee’s original cast members. Monteith, who played Finn Hudson, died from accidental overdose in 2013 at the age of 31.
Salling, who played Noah “Puck” Puckerman, died of suicide in 2018 while waiting for his sentence in a legal case after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography with a prepubescent minor. He was 35.
In 2020, Rivera, who played as Santana Lopez on Glee, died of accidental drowning at the age of 33.
