BROADWAY fans were outraged after Lea Michele was announced as Beanie Feldstein's Funny Girl replacement Monday.
Many fumed we're living in "the darkest timeline" given the successor's past bullying accusations on Glee where Lea's character aspired to the role.
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Lea will replace Beanie as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl on Broadway, the show shared on July 11th.
Her first night will be September 6th.
Beanie initially announced in June that she would be leaving the production on September 25th.
But the actress then posted an update Sunday evening stating that her last show will be the end of July instead with a stand-in star filling the stage in between.
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"Once the production decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to step away sooner than anticipated," Beanie wrote on Instagram.
She starred in the role originated by Barbara Streisand in 1964 since the Broadway revival of the show opened in April.
Quite coincidentally, leaving Funny Girl as well is co-star Jane Lynch - who was also on TV's Glee with Lea.
Lea played Rachel Berry on Glee, her character's lifelong dream was playing Barbara's Fanny Brice, and she sang many of the show's songs during the series - allegedly "bullying" the cast along the way.
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'THE DARKEST TIMELINE'
The art-imitates-life element of it all had fans floored, some said it appeared Lea was waiting in the wings the whole time.
"Please tell me I’m being Krissed rn," one Instagrammer wrote under the show's post referencing Kris Jenner, 66, and implying it was a prank.
"Hopefully Lea Michele doesn’t bully her castmates in Funny Girl," wrote another.
"Truly never thought I'd say this but I am legitimately disgusted that Leah Michelle is taking over for Beanie in Funny Girl," wrote a third on Twitter.
"She's carbon perfect for the role, sure, but what a s**t way to get the thing you've always wanted. Supremely glad to have seen Beanie while she was there."
A fourth used a GIF of Jane Lynch saying she'd create a toxic environment, writing: "Lea Michele when she inevitably joins funny girl on broadway now."
Another wrote, "It’s okay you can just say you didn’t want a plus-size person as a lead anymore."
A fifth fan penned: "I'd just rather never see Lea Michele in anything ever again. There are PLENTY of great talents that don't treat castmates like garbage."
Others said: "We can’t ever give her that role that’s the last infinity stone" while yet one more called this the “darkest timeline.”
While a sixth added: "I am not even into broadway but I am into DRAMA."
DON'T RAIN ON HER PARADE
In 2021, Lea's name was trending when Beanie was announced as the star.
“Who gets to say they got what they wished for?” Beanie originally wrote on Instagram.
Lea wrote under her initial share: "Yes! YOU are the greatest star! This is going to be epic!
"I didn’t know that any of this was happening, by the way,” Beanie told Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM show, Radio Andy.
"All of a sudden people started explaining it to me and I was like, ‘What?’ Like … ‘I didn’t understand.’"
“I don’t know the woman whatsoever."
Lea did not mention Beanie in her own announcement this week but wrote on Instagram that “a dream come true is an understatement.”
Back in 2014, Glee creator Ryan Murphy also bought the rights to Funny Girl with the intention to produce a Broadway revival starring Lea.
'ABUSED' CO-STAR SPEAKS OUT
Former co-star Jane also bowing out before Lea enters the show comes after the actress' long history of backlash from her Glee co-stars.
Samantha Ware, who joined in Season 6, accused Lea of making her life "a living hell" on the set of Glee.
Samantha tweeted that Lea said she would "s*** in my wig."
She later told Variety Lea threatened her job "and said she would call Ryan Murphy in to come and fire me."
Samantha played Jane Hayward in 2015 on the sixth season of the musical series.
She spoke on the shock news today andtweeted: "Yes, I’m online today. Yes, I see y’all. Yes, I care. Yes, I'm affected. Yes, I’m human. Yes, I’m Black. Yes, I was abused.
"Yes, my dreams were tainted. Yes, Broadway upholds whiteness. Yes, Hollywood does the same. Yes, silence is complicity. Yes, I’m loud. Yes, I’d do it again."
Glee stars Alex Newell, Amber Riley and Dabier Snell earlier came to Samantha’s defense.
Dabier claimed: “Girl you wouldn’t let me sit at the table with the other cast members cause ‘I didn’t belong there’ f**k you Lea you don’t give a f**k.”
Imia Edwards, an extra on the show, said that Michele referred to her and others as “cockroaches” and asked them to not even “look at her” while cameras weren’t rolling.
Trans model Plastic Martyr, also on the show, exclusively told The Sun Lea bullied her in a women's bathroom at the Emmys.
"She goes, 'Excuse me?' and she looks at her friends, looks at me again, and says, 'Excuse you, you're in the woman's bathroom.'"
People were staring at me and talking and pointing. I was like, 'Okay, I'm out of here.'
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The New York Times wrote "Feldstein is not stupendous. She's good. She's funny enough in places, and immensely likable always."
The actress is Jonah Hill's sister and coincidentally starred in American Crime Story, another Ryan Murphy project.
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