Heather Morris claims Glee cast were ‘scared’ to call out Lea Michele’s behaviour

Heather Morris has opened up about not calling out Lea Michele’s behaviour on the Glee set earlier, saying she didn’t believe it was her place.

Last year Spring Awakening star Lea was accused of making her co-star Samantha Ware’s life a ‘living hell’, with a number of other cast members also speaking out.

The actress issued an apology but denied ever judging anybody by the colour of their skin.

Speaking on the Everything Iconic With Danny Pellegrino podcast, Heather said her co-stars were ‘scared’ to say anything while still working on the teen drama.

‘I don’t know if maybe we were victims of bullying, and it’s a typical victim thing to do to blame yourself, which is what people were saying, but the only person who was honest about it was Naya [Rivera],’ she said.

‘It was something that was very hush-hush on set, and now you see all these things coming out with these bigger names who were very disrespectful and mistreated a lot of people and people allowed it to happen.

‘It’s like we absolutely could have stepped up and gone to the Fox execs and said how we felt about the situation, and nobody really did.

‘I think many people were very scared, and I know, genuinely, I felt like it wasn’t my place, and I don’t know why because I was a cast member just like everybody else.’

She added that now we are living in a culture where it’s acceptable.

Heather speculated that some of Lea’s behaviour could have been connected to her mourning her co-star and then-boyfriend Cory Monteith, who died in July 2013 after an overdose.

She continued: ‘We all got close with Lea at different points, and then we all weren’t as close with her.

‘So there’s that human element to understanding who this person is, growing with that person, seeing her try to become better and taking care of herself after Cory’s past. It was just the elephant in the room.’

In response to the backlash, Lea wrote on Instagram last summer: ‘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.

‘When I tweeted the other day, it was meant to be a show of support for our friends and neighbours and communities of colour during this really difficult time, but the responses I received to what I posted have made me also focus specifically on how my own behaviour towards fellow cast members was perceived by them.

‘While I don’t remember ever making this specific statement and I have never judged others by their background or colour of their skin, that’s really not the point, what matters is that I clearly acted in ways which hurt other people.’

Follow Metro across our social channels, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Share your views in the comments below.