It was the musical-comedy drama which dominated TV screens and popular culture from 2009 – 2015, and now the BTS secrets of Glee are being made into a documentary.
Despite the show’s glossy all-American image and could-be-Disney stars, Glee weathered it’s fair share of controversies during the six years it aired, enough that streaming site Discovery+ and ID are now turning the drama off camera into a documentary.
The upcoming documentary has been commissioned to Ample Entertainment, who’ve got a track record of producing HBO Docuseries’ including The Invisible Pilot which was released earlier this year. While the release date is still a long way off and the project is currently untitled, producers won’t be short of content to draw upon to make a seriously compelling series.
For a start, the alleged behaviour of one of the show’s stars, Lea Michele, made worldwide headlines when she was accused of bullying and microaggressions on set. In 2020, starting with actress Samantha Ware, a number of Lea’s co-stars came forward to report that working with Lea had been ‘very difficult’, with Samantha quote retweeting a tweet relating to George Floyd’s death and writing, ‘LMAO Remember when you made my first television gig a living hell?!?! ‘Cause I’ll never forget. I believe you told everyone that if you had the opportunity you would "S**t in my wig!" Amongst other traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood.'
The scandal resulted in HelloFresh dropping their endorsement with Lea, and the actress eventually making a public apology.
‘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 said.
Also sure to feature is the shocking case of actor Mark Salling’s arrest and guilty plea over possessing images of child sex abuse, followed by his suicide while awaiting sentencing.
Two other high-profile deaths –firstly of Cory Monteith, who was ruled to have died by an accidental heroin overdose in 2019, and of Naya Rivera, who was killed in a mysterious boating accident in 2020 - are likely to also make it into the director's cut, with the documentary promising access to many of the show's cast and crew and never before heard accounts from their time on the show.