Not long after the wildly popular musical dramedy “Glee” reached its pinnacle of success, a series of tragedies befell various cast members while others were rocked by various scandals.
But despite the so-called “Glee” curse — which encompasses the deaths of two cast members, the suicide of another and other unfortunate circumstances — the show is returning on Disney+ and Hulu, the streamers announced via Instagram on Oct. 21, 2026.
The show, co-created by Ryan Murphy (who recently said he’d finished the reboot’s script), Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, originally premiered in 2009 and aired for six seasons, taking its final bow in 2015.
Lea Michele is said to be reprising her role as Rachel Berry in the revival, with one source telling Variety she “is in.”
Heather Morris, who played Brittany Pierce, and Chord Overstreet, who played Sam Evans, also seemingly confirmed involvement in a reboot, per separate social media posts they shared the same day.
Amid news of “Glee” returning to our screens, here’s everything to know about the infamous “Glee” curse, claims of which series star Kevin McHale, who played Artie Abrams, has called “f–king diabolical and untethered to any sort of humanity or reality.”
The death of Cory Monteith
In July 2013, Cory Monteith — Michele’s on-screen and real-life boyfriend — died at the age 31 from an accidental overdose.
Monteith, who played Finn Hudson on the series, had spoken out on numerous occasions about his battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
The British Columbia Coroners Service said at the time that a used hypodermic needle and a spoon with drug residue were found by investigators in the Vancouver hotel room where his body was found.
Coroner Claire Thompson said in a report that she classified “this death as accidental,” while Canadian authorities ruled that he died of a deadly cocktail of heroin and booze.
Thompson added, “Mr. Monteith was found in a collapsed position on the hotel room floor. It appeared that Mr. Monteith had been dead for several hours.”
The actor’s death was incorporated into the show in the emotional Season 5 episode titled “The Quarterback,” without specifying how the character passed away.
In a 2025 interview on Jake Shane’s “Therapuss” podcast, Michele said Monteith’s death “fractured” her relationship with her castmates.
“It was way too much to try to process at a young age, but I’m very grateful for everyone there,” she revealed. “Whether or not they know it, I personally felt a lot of support from everybody in the building helping me to get through.”
Mark Salling dies by suicide
After pleading guilty to possession of child pornography the prior year, Mark Salling died by suicide at the age of 35 in March 2018.
Per documents, the actor, who played Noah “Puck” Puckerman on the show, knowingly downloaded illicit images of minors — thousands of them — across an eight month period in 2015, culminating in his arrest later that year.
In 2016, a woman accused Salling of raping her at a hotel in 2012.
The Los Angeles County district attorney ultimately did not charge Salling, citing insufficient evidence and a delay in the alleged victim’s reporting of the incident.
Salling’s “Glee” co-star Naya Rivera — whom he dated from 2007 to 2010 — wrote in her 2016 memoir, “Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up,” that she was not “totally shocked” by Salling’s child pornography charges.
The death of Naya Rivera
In July 2020, Rivera was feared dead when she went missing during an outing with her then 4-year-old son, Josey, at California’s Lake Piru.
Josey was discovered sleeping alone in the rented boat several hours later with his life jacket on — while an adult-sized safety vest was on the boat with him, along with Rivera’s purse and ID.
Rivera’s body was recovered several days later, with Ventura County Sheriff William Ayub telling reporters investigators believed “it was mid-afternoon when she went swimming, the idea being, perhaps, that the boat began drifting.”
They also surmised that the actress “mustered enough energy to get her son back on the boat but not enough to save herself” and noted that there are “currents on the lake that appear particularly in the afternoon.”
According to Ayub, after the child was “boosted” onto the boat’s “deck from behind,” and Josey “looked back and saw her disappear under the surface of the water.”
Rivera — who was 33 at the time of her death — shared Josey with ex-husband Ryan Dorsey, whom she married in 2014.
There had apparently been bad blood between the exes, as the “Glee” star was arrested in 2017 and accused of domestic battery against Dorsey.
The charges were dropped a year later, and the pair divorced in 2018.
Lea Michele is accused of workplace bullying
In 2020, “Glee” cast member Samantha Ware, who played Jane Hayward, accused Michele of threatening to defile her wig, claiming the show’s star made her time on the show “a living hell.”
In response to Michele’s supportive Black Lives Matter tweet, Ware wrote in a since-deleted reply, “LMAO Remember when you made my first television gig a living hell?!?! Cause I’ll never forget. I believe you told everyone that if you had the opportunity you would ‘s–t in my wig!’ amongst other traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood.”
Michele subsequently attempted to apologize to Ware by saying the accusations made her “focus specifically on how [her] own befhavior towards fellow cast members was perceived by them,” which made Ware respond, “Perceived?”
Meanwhile, Morris corroborated Ware’s accusations, saying Michele was “unpleasant” to work with.
Amber Riley, who played Mercedes Jones, responded to Ware’s original post with a GIF of herself sipping tea and, in an interview at the time, said her focus was on supporting fellow black actors.
“There were a lot of black actors and actresses that were in my inbox telling me their stories and were letting me know that they have dealt with the same things, being on set and terrorized by the white girls that are the leads of their show,” she said during an appearance on “Real Quick With Danielle Young.”
Actor Dabier Snell, who won a guest spot on “Glee,” told The Post that Michele had him banished from lunch on set when he tried to sit with stars Darren Criss and Chris Colfer.
“Five to 10 minutes after we sat down and had a conversation, I was pulled [aside by an assistant director] and told one of the cast members did not want me to sit there, because she felt I don’t belong,” Snell claimed. “I later found out it was [Michele] who said that. Everybody else was cool. I couldn’t tell Darren or Chris because they work with her and she has a lot of power.”
“I just zipped my mouth,” he continued. “I went back to my trailer and cried a bit, I won’t lie.”
A friend of Michele’s told The Post at the time that this was a “real wake-up call” for the actress.
Former “Glee” producer Marti Noxon tweeted at the time that “there were LOTS of bad actors” on the set of the show “who were NOT women.”
“People in the industry know who I’m talking about,” she added. “Why aren’t we calling them out?”
Matthew Morrison is fired from ‘So You Think You Can Dance
In May 2022, Morrison, who played Will Schuester on “Glee,” was fired as a judge from Fox’s dance competition series “So You Think You Can Dance” after allegedly sending a flirty direct message to a female contestant.
A source told People at the time that Morrison was dismissed over what was deemed “an inappropriate relationship with a female contestant.”
“They didn’t have sex, but he reached out to her through flirty direct messages on social media,” the source claimed. “She felt uncomfortable with his line of comments and went to producers, who then got Fox involved. He was fired after they did their own investigation.”
Morrison defended himself by saying in an Instagram video at the time, “It’s really unfortunate that I have to sit here and defend myself and my family against blatantly untrue statements made anonymously, but I have nothing to hide.”
He added that, “in the interest of transparency,” he would “read to you the one message that [he] wrote to a dancer on the show.”
Without showing what he was reading from, Morrison read, “Hey! It’s Matthew. If you don’t mind, would love to get your number and talk you through some things.”
Morrison lamented, “It’s devastating that we live in this world where gossip rules and people’s lives are being thrown around as clickbait.”
The actor has been married to wife Renee Puento, with whom he shares two children, since 2014.
At the time of the “SYTYCD” scandal, Puento praised Morrison’s “grace and integrity” amid a situation “that is complex and incredibly complicated.”
Melissa Benoist accuses co-star Blake Jenner of abuse
In November 2019, Melissa Benoist, who played Marley Rose, disclosed her experience as a domestic violence survivor in a lengthy Instagram video.
Though she did not name the man involved at the time, Benoist had been married to her “Glee” co-star Blake Jenner, who played Ryder Lynn on the show, from 2015 to 2017.
Nearly a year later, in October 2020, Jenner took to Instagram to “take full responsibility and accountability for the hurt that [he] inflicted during [his] relationship with [his] past partner — emotionally, mentally and yes, physically.”
“Two years prior to the end of our relationship, there was a time where my past partner and I were in an argument that escalated, and in a moment of frustration, while I was standing in the hallway and she was in our bedroom, I threw my phone aimlessly and it hit my former partner in her face,” he wrote.
Jenner said it was “a moment that [he] will regret for the rest of [his] life,” adding, “If I could do anything to take it back, I would.”
He also made counterclaims of abuse, writing that it’s “important to understand that there was mental, emotional and physical abuse inflicted from both ends.”
Two years later, in July 2022, Jenner was arrested for DUI after failing sobriety testing during a traffic stop in Burbank, California.
The post Unpacking the ‘Glee’ curse as the show sets its shocking return appeared first on Page Six.
