For years, Glee star Lea Michele has been the subject of a notorious internet meme trend called “Can Lea Michele read?” The meme, which seemingly originated from a wild conspiracy theory, addresses rumors of the actress’ illiteracy. Michele, who has since responded to the rumors and set the record straight multiple times, has addressed it yet again.
Here’s how Michele recently addressed the ‘Can she read’ meme.
Lea Michele talks about trend and meme about her
Lea Michele recently appeared on Jake Shane’s Therapuss podcast, where she discussed the origin of the ‘Can she read’ meme, which started years ago.
“What was trending online more was Lea Michele can’t read,” the Scream Queens actress said. She then shared how Ryan Murphy called her and asked her if she had heard about the rumor. “And I was like no, what’s going on?” she added.
Michele then told Shane to give her the question booklets he was holding onto, insisting on reading them on camera. Michele lunged towards his sofa and took the booklets from him and quipped, “Jonathan is not here to read me this s—,” likely referencing friend and fellow actor Jonathan Groff. Notably, in 2022, Michele joined TikTok and uploaded her first video — where she claimed via video captions to be calling Groff, so he can read to her the comments on her video, seemingly poking fun at the rumor.
Quashing the rumors during the recent podcast, she went on to read the questions on camera for viewers to see. Further, Michele revealed that she was a national debater in New Jersey and would write speeches as well.
The ‘Lea Michele can’t read’ meme trend dates back to at least 2017, when podcasters Jaye Hunt and Robert Ackerman had published a slideshow video explaining their theory on how The Mayor actress could neither read nor write.
Hunt and Ackerman backed their claims with an anecdote from Sorry Not Sorry, written by Michele’s late Glee co-star Naya Rivera. In the book, it was explained how Michele refused to improvise scenes with actor Tim Conway, which Ackerman and Hunt took as logical evidence that Michele memorized the lines read to her by Ryan Murphy, since she couldn’t read.
Originally reported by Abdul Azim Naushad on ComingSoon.
