Lea Michele's secrets: the hidden romance with a partner on 'Glee' and the last words of Cory Monteith who tattooed on her skin

At 35, Lea Michele can be proud to have been triumphing on Broadway stages and Hollywood sets for more than 25 years. A solid career in the world of film, television and music that made her one of those off-road stars after her role as Rachel Berry in the musical series “Glee” made her known worldwide.

Accustomed to the world of musicals — her first Broadway job was in Les Miserables when she was not even 10 years old — the production created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk (current husband of Gwyneth Paltrow) and Ian Brennan in 2009 dramatically changed her career, leaving theaters behind on the small screen.

In the successful youth program he got great personal joys but also bad times. There, between scripts and cameras, she fell in love with Cory Monteith (Finn Hudson in the series), who died in 2013 from a heroin overdose, the most terrifying and painful episode of his life. And it was in 2020 that Naya Rivera died of drowning.

An unexpected accusation of racism

Lea enjoyed great popularity until one day she became the most hated and repudiated by Internet users, until she was briefly “canceled” on social networks. It was all because of a post that Lea herself shared on her official Twitter account in which she repudiated the murder of George Floyd by the police. “I didn't deserve this. This was not an isolated incident and should end #BlackLivesMatter,” he said. A gesture that seemed appropriate ended up causing serious problems in his public image. It happened that a colleague read the message and decided to pass it an old bill. She responded to the tweet stating that the actress herself had acted racist and treated her as a hypocrite for using the death of the African-American citizen to make a good impression.

It took Lea by surprise. Her “Glee” partner Samantha Ware accused her of making her life a “hell” during the filming of the famous show. “Do you remember when you made my television debut a hell of a lot? Because I will never forget it,” Ware told him on Instagram. In turn, Heather Morris confessed in an interview that she had suffered abusive and unpleasant behavior on the part of Michele. The accusations raised a major controversy on social media and led to more allegations of workplace harassment against the actress, who felt cornered and asked for forgiveness. “I apologize for my behavior and for the pain I caused.”

A romance that was slow to confirm

During the years that “Glee” aired, Lea Michele dated her co-star Cory Monteith. They even got engaged. Unfortunately, their relationship came to a tragic end when Monteith was found lifeless in his hotel room in Vancouver, Canada. His death was described as an accidental overdose.

However, before Michele's relationship with Monteith, she had a previous affair with Matthew Morrison, who played her teacher, Will “Mr. Schue” Schuester, on “Glee”. That rumor had been going on for a long time but it was always discredited by its protagonists.

Speaking to the press in 2010, Michele said: “I've known Matt for years. He's been a friend of mine from New York. People are going to make things up. I think it's just because we're really close.” That same year, Morrison denied the romance in Parade magazine and said, “We were literally on set and I got a call from my publicist, and she got a call a minute later and we looked at each other like, 'What the hell? ' It's so ridiculous.”

At first they denied the rumors of their romance, but Lea in her autobiography confirmed that she did have a brief relationship with her cast mate before starting the filming of the series.

But in her 2014 memoir, “Brunette Ambition,” Lea confessed that she fell in love with Morrison, who is eight years older than her, in New York City, where both actors were working on Broadway stages. “When we shot the pilot, I met Cory Monteith, Kevin McHale, Amber Riley and Chris Colfer for the first time,” he wrote. “I had previously worked on Broadway with Jenna Ushkowitz and Matthew Morrison. Matt had been friends with me for years and, in fact, we had dated in the past.”

It was later revealed that Michele wasn't the only famous actress Morrison courted before “Glee”. Actress Kristen Bell told that they dated for a while. “So I'll have to say that maybe Matt Morrison is my favorite part of 'Glee' for several reasons,” he confessed.

El renacer de Lea Michele

The actress smiled again with Zandy Reich, after the hard times she experienced a few years ago with the death of Monteith, who is tattooed on her skin. Lea was on “Glee” for six seasons and was the one who made the decision to continue filming after the sudden death of her partner in life.

Cory's fatal drug overdose in 2013 proved to be devastating for Lea Michele, who had been dating Monteith for several years. Overcome with grief and besieged by paparazzi, the actress approached Kate Hudson, whom she had met when she played a recurring role on “Glee”. “I called Kate and said, 'I don't know where I'm going because my house is full [of reporters]. ' She was like, 'You're going to stay at my place. '” Michele said. “Nobody knew it was there,” Michele revealed in an interview with Elle magazine. “I can never really thank him, really, for what he did for me.”

Lea was devastated and fell into a deep depression. A few days later, still shocked, the actress tattooed on her body the last words that her boyfriend said to her: “If you say so” (If you say so) and dedicated a song with the same name to her. “I feel that the way he died is something insignificant compared to who he was in life. There was no better man than Cory, so for the time I was with him, I consider myself very lucky,” she said.

Five years later, after a failed relationship with model and actor Matthew Paetz, the television star remade her life with businessman Zandy Reich, whom she got engaged to in April 2018 after two years of relationship and married a year later, on March 9, 2019.

Lea said she didn't want to say “I do” without counting the approval of her close friend, producer Ryan Murphy, who worked with her on the series that catapulted her to fame and on “Scream Queens”. “When my boyfriend got Ryan's approval, that was it,” he joked.

The American actress and the president of the clothing company AYR celebrated their love in a romantic and intimate ceremony, officiated by Murphy himself, in northern California, before more than 200 guests, including some “Glee” hers such as Darren Cris and Becca Tobin, and his “Scream Queens” co-star Emma Roberts.

In April 2020, the actress announced that she was pregnant with her first child. Four months later and in the midst of a scandal over allegations of workplace harassment by some “Glee” colleagues, Lea announced that she was the mother of a boy named Ever Leo.

Her secret battle to be a mom

The couple is grateful for the arrival of their first child because it was not easy for them to enlarge their families. In a recent interview, the actress told about the problems she had getting pregnant and the difficulties she faced after becoming a new mother in the midst of a pandemic. Lea's journey to motherhood was complicated by her diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), an ailment that made it very difficult for her to realize her dream of having a baby: “I had a very intense journey trying to get pregnant.”

Lea even said that she had already lost hope of becoming a mother after years of trying: “We had given up a little, my husband and I,” she admitted. “I really felt like maybe this wasn't meant to be for me,” she recalled, adding, “My biggest fear all my life was that I wouldn't be able to become a mother.”

In the meantime, she continued to work. No one at work knew what he was going through. After several failed attempts, she and her husband decided to stop trying. It was in December 2019 that the actress “unexpectedly” discovered that she was pregnant. “It was the happiest 72 hours of my life.” But then he had a bad time when he suffered losses before taking the stage. He was prescribed an “extreme” amount of medication and rest during his first trimester: “It was absolutely horrible,” he said.

“I finally announced that I was pregnant and still wasn't sure if the pregnancy was going to last,” she said tearfully. “It was the worst moment in my entire life.” She woke Zandy up in the middle of the night to ask him to hold her. “We were very afraid.” They eventually received the news that the baby was healthy and in August 2020 Ever was born.

In retrospect, Lea regretted that she did not tell more people about her struggle to be a mother and to rely on them to contain her in that painful time.

Today having Ever in her arms is the world for her. “It's everything I've ever wanted.”

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