RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Alaska is opening up about her awkward encounter with Lea Michele at the 2017 Grammy Awards.
During a recent episode of her and Drag Race star Willam’s “Race Chaser” podcast, Alaska, 38, recalled attending the February 2017 awards ceremony with fellow drag queen Katya. “Celebrities are mortified of drag queens because we represent the sort of facade. We pull the curtain back of the facade of what Hollywood is. We make fun of it,” Alaska stated.
“People wouldn’t look us in the eye. Like, Lea Michele looked through us, wouldn’t even acknowledge that we exist,” Alaska continued. “Kris Jenner was there just looking so mad at her life that it had come to this. She was hosting the E! carpet, and just looked so miserable.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Michele’s rep for comment.
On the podcast, Alaska proceeded to praise drag star Princess Poppy for making a statement by attending the 2023 Emmys in a green goblin getup. “Princess Poppy doing this I think is a great statement because she’s the sum of all fears,” she stated.
Princess Poppy, who was on hand when RuPaul’s Drag Race won the Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition Program, previously told The Los Angeles Times that the inspiration behind her viral look was to “take everything that is rude and ugly about the usual decorum of awards and do the complete opposite.” She continued: “The whole purpose of doing this is a way to showcase that the rules of fashion, and rules of beauty and bulls–t, I think it’s more beautiful to show up like this than to show up how you normally would at an awards show.”
Michele, for her part, has faced criticism about her alleged behavior before. In June 2020, her former Glee castmate Samantha Ware accused Michele of making her life “a living hell” on set and claimed the actress once threatened to “s–t in my wig.”
Michele addressed Ware’s accusations in a lengthy Instagram apology, stating, “While I don’t remember ever making this specific statement and I have never judged others by their background or color of their skin, that’s not really the point. What matters is that I clearly acted in ways which hurt other people.”
Michele’s former Ragtime understudy, Elizabeth Aldrich, subsequently claimed a 12-year-old Michele made her cry “every night” while working together. “She demanded the crew and threatened to have people fired if she was in anyway displeased,” Aldrich tweeted in June 2020.
At the time, a source exclusively told Us that the drama caused Michele to “reevaluate her behavior in the past,” adding, “This has been a serious learning lesson and she is committed to making these adjustments as a complete life change for the future. She is listening to those who have come forward and has been reaching out to initiate open and honest conversations.”
Ahead of September 2022 debut in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, Michele admitted to having “an edge” when it comes to her work behavior. “I leave no room for mistakes,” she told The New York Times. “That level of perfectionism, or that pressure of perfectionism, left me with a lot of blind spots.”
She went on to note that she learned what it means to be a “leader” among her coworkers. ‘It means not only going and doing a good job when the camera’s rolling, but also when it’s not,” she stated. “And that wasn’t always the most important thing for me.”
