Patti LuPone has issued an apology after lots of of members of the Broadway neighborhood condemned her latest remarks disparaging fellow Broadway actresses Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald.
“For so long as I’ve labored within the theatre, I’ve spoken my thoughts and by no means apologized. That’s altering right now,” LuPone wrote within the opening of an announcement launched via Instagram on Saturday (Could 31).
“I’m deeply sorry for the phrases I used throughout The New Yorker interview, significantly about Kecia Lewis, which had been demeaning and disrespectful. I remorse my flippant and emotional responses throughout this interview, which had been inappropriate, and I’m devastated that my conduct has offended others and has run counter to what we maintain pricey on this neighborhood. I hope to have the possibility to talk to Audra and Kecia personally to supply my honest apologies,” stated LuPone.
LuPone’s response arrived the day after after an open letter directed at her — and signed by greater than 500 people within the Broadway world — was revealed in outcry to feedback from the actress perceived to be “degrading and misogynistic,” in addition to a “blatant act of racialized disrespect.” The letter was additionally geared toward “a tradition, a sample” within the Broadway business: “a persistent failure to carry folks accountable for violent, disrespectful, or dangerous conduct — particularly when they’re highly effective or well-known.”
In Saturday’s assertion, LuPone acknowledged the message of the letter and expressed remorse over what she stated about her friends.
“I wholeheartedly agree with all the pieces that was written within the open letter shared yesterday,” she wrote. “From center faculty drama golf equipment to skilled levels, theatre has at all times been about lifting one another up and welcoming those that really feel they don’t belong anyplace else. I made a mistake, I take full duty for it, and I’m dedicated to creating this proper. Our complete theatre neighborhood deserves higher.”
The New Yorker ran a profile on LuPone earlier this week that quoted her calling Lewis — who’s within the Alicia Keys-created Broadway musical Hell’s Kitchen, which was carried out subsequent door to the LuPone-starring The Roommate in 2024 — a “b—-” for contemplating herself a stage “veteran.”
The piece had LuPone recounting complaints she’d made to Shubert Group head Robert Wankel that sound from Lewis’ Hell’s Kitchen may very well be heard throughout her stage time in The Roommate. (Lewis had responded to LuPone’s complaints on Instagram on the time, and deemed them “bullying,” “racially microaggressive” and “rooted in privilege” for calling “a Black present loud.”)
“She calls herself a veteran?” LuPone stated in The New Yorker article dated Could 26. “Let’s learn the way many Broadway reveals Kecia Lewis has completed, as a result of she doesn’t know what the f— she’s speaking about. Don’t name your self a vet, b—-.”
LuPone additionally remarked that she had a “rift” with McDonald, who’d proven assist for Lewis: “That’s typical of Audra. She’s not a pal,” LuPone advised The New Yorker; McDonald later stated she was unaware of the rift.
LuPone, a three-time Tony Award and two-time Grammy Award winner, in 2024 starred as Robyn reverse Mia Farrow’s Sharon in The Roommate for the darkish comedy’s four-month engagement on Broadway on the Sales space Theatre. She simply wrapped a sequence of live performance dates that ran throughout choose U.S. cities from late January by late Could, with a pair festival appearances slated for this summer time.
In 2024 Lewis gained her first Tony, for greatest featured actress in a musical, for her work as Miss Liza Jane in Hell’s Kitchen, the Broadway manufacturing whose performers had been additionally awarded the Grammy for greatest musical theater album final yr. Hell’s Kitchen is presently nonetheless enjoying on Broadway on the Shubert Theatre.
McDonald, presently main the Broadway revival of Gypsy on the Majestic Theatre, has gained six Tonys, two Grammys and an Emmy all through her profession. Nominated for her portrayal of Rose in Gypsy, she’s up for one other Tony, for greatest actress in a musical, at this yr’s ceremony. She holds a report variety of whole Tony nominations (11).
The 2025 Tony Awards will broadcast reside to each coasts on CBS only a week from right now, from 8 to 11 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 8; the present may even stream on Paramount+.
