Are you still wondering whether or not Lea Michele can read? Well, her former Glee co-star Darren Criss just set the record straight — or did he?
During Thursday night’s (Feb. 8) episode of the Watch What Happens Live: After Show, a virtual fan asked the actor what we’ve all been wondering for the last seven years.
“What did you think of the rumors — the rumors — that [Michele] doesn’t know how to read?” Tatiana from Miami wondered, to which Criss enthusiastically replied, “It’s my favorite thing. I love exacerbating this rumor as much as humanly possible.”
He continued, “If anybody loves this rumor the most, it’s me — and I definitely fuel this flame. She’ll be so angry that I’m doing this.”
Criss appeared on the Andy Cohen-hosted talk show alongside The Traitors host Alan Cumming, who very seriously asked if Michele can actually read.
“Of course she can,” Criss confirmed, before joking, “Or can’t she and I’m just protecting her from her vulnerable position?”
Meanwhile, Cohen offered his own theory on the viral meme.
“I heard Jonathan Groff does all her reading for her,” he said. “I heard he’s her reading buddy and that’s why they’re always together because he’s a really good reader for two.”
Criss then added, “OK. So maybe I’ll add myself. Maybe I transcribe things for her in a script that she can understand. We have secret hand signs.”
All joking aside, the Broadway star ended the segment by confirming that his longtime friend can, in fact, read.
“I don’t think she would be able to do Funny Girl if she couldn’t read — or could she?” he ominously concluded.
The “Lea Michele can’t read” conspiracy dates back to a 2017 episode of the pop culture podcast One More Thing. In the late Naya Rivera‘s memoir, Sorry Not Sorry, she claims that Michele refused to improvise her lines on the set of Glee, prompting hosts Jaye Hunt and Robert Ackerman to theorize that this could be because she was illiterate and therefore had director Ryan Murphy feed her her lines during her scenes, per Entertainment Weekly.
Watch What Happens Live airs Sunday through Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on Bravo. New episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.
