Lea Michele Debunks the “Crazy” Rumor That She Can’t Read

Lea Michele is in on the joke, and apparently over it. While appearing on Jake Shane’s Therapuss podcast, the Glee star addressed the long-standing internet joke and “crazy” rumor that she doesn’t know how to read: “It’s so sad and so frustrating.”

Michele has spent the better part of the last decade as the subject of a persistent internet rumor turned meme that claims she never learned to read. The joke stemmed from the fact that Michele became a working actor when she was a tiny tot, starring on Broadway in shows such as Ragtime and Les Misérables, and thus never received a traditional education. But on Therapuss, Michele set the record straight about her impressive reading—and writing—abilities.

“For everyone who thinks that I can’t fucking read, I was on the debate team,” Michele told Shane. “I would write speeches.”

For the record, Michele has had some fun with the joke in the past. In February of 2023, she expressed her excitement to read her idol Barbra Streisand’s memoir, My Name Is Barbra, in a cheeky TikTok message. Michele’s post showed her looking overwhelmed in front of a screenshotted book announcement, with the caption: “265 days to learn to READ!!!!”

Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s a fan of the bit. After Shane asked Michele if she loved or hated the joke, the Funny Girl star said that “it depends on the day.” “Sometimes I think it’s crazy that people care enough about me that they would make up something. That someone has so little to do in their life—in their day—that they would waste it on me is hilarious to me. And then there are moments where I fucking get so frustrated by it because I’m one of the only women in my whole family to get accepted to college.”

Michele explained that her mother’s side of the family was “extremely poor from the Bronx” and “not very well educated,” and that her parents moved from the Bronx to her native New Jersey in order to give Michele access to a better education. “For someone to minimize that, it’s so sad and so frustrating,” she said. “It’s wild. It’s really wild. It’s a crazy thing.” Michele was eventually accepted into New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, but she decided not to go because of, you know, her budding stardom.

Michele recalled the first time she heard the rumor. “I’ll never forget—the same day that that all came out, Donald Trump said he was gonna punch John McCain in the face or something like that,” she said. “It was 2015 and he said something so wild, but what was trending online more was ‘Lea Michele can’t read.’” She then received a phone call from Glee producer Ryan Murphy. “Ryan Murphy called me and he was like, ‘Have you heard this rumor?’ And I was like, ‘No, what’s going on?’”

To prove once and for all that she could read, Michele grabbed Shane’s notecards and began reading them aloud. At one point she pretended not to know what one of the words was. “Oh my God, the theories,” she said. “They’re going to be like, ‘Jake called her in advance. This doesn’t prove anything. She memorized it. She saw the cards in advance. This proves nothing.’”

She name-checked best friend and Spring Awakening costar Jonathan Groff, referencing an interview in which he addressed the rumor for her: “Jonathan did a podcast that someone was like, ‘Can Lea read?’ and his response, to me, was so funny. He was like, ‘Do you really think she can’t? What the fuck does that say about you?’” Michele added: “I have photographic memory too. How do you think I memorized all those Rachel Berry speeches?” In case you’re thinking that Michele’s photographic memory helped her cheat somehow: Stop. Move on. Lea Michele can read. Case closed.