Lea Michele is on the road and baring her soul.
The 35-year-old performer and actress kicked off her Life In Music tour on Wednesday (July 20) at the City Winery location in Washington, DC. During her show, she bravely opened up about the one Glee episode that she has never watched, which was “The Quarterback”, a tribute episode addressing the death of her former boyfriend and co-star Cory Monteith and his Glee character Finn Hudson.
As she introduced the song “Make You Feel My Love,” which her character Rachel Berry performed in the episode, Lea shared a touching story about what was going on behind the scenes. She shared that Glee creator Ryan Murphy asked her to pick the song that she would like to sing to honor Finn, and said:
“How can I pick a song that says everything, you know? And so I just was like, ‘What can it be?’ I don’t even remember what I was listening to at the time. Like, nothing. I was just in such a hole.
And I’m grateful that he asked me. I really, really am. Because it needed to be something that felt real for me, but it was also so hard to just think of what song it could be. And then I just immediately was like, ‘Oh, that’s it.’
I think we maybe listened to the song one time, because I know when Rachel says in the show that we would listen to it and that’s real. Because a lot of what I say in that episode, a lot of what I say to [Matthew Morrison]’s character in that classroom were exact words that I said to Ryan after everything.”
Lea went on, heartbreakingly recalling:
“I said I don’t want to be treated with kid gloves, I want to just come back to work and be with everyone because this is the only way I’m going to feel better. And then I got to sing this song.
I remember filming it. It was really hard. I would film it and then run off and then I would come back. It was wild and hard, but we healed together and this song helped.”
She concluded by revealing that she has never watched “The Quarterback”:
“I have never watched the episode. It’s the only one I’ve not seen. Because I think if I don’t watch it, it just kind of feels like Finn is still there. So this [song] is very special.”
