My ‘Glee’ Costars Hosted My Steroid Intervention

The New Directions caught collectively in actual life too, with Glee alum Kevin McHale revealing Naya Rivera and Jenna Ushkowitz as soon as held an intervention to deal with his use of steroids.

The 35-year-old actor, who performed Artie Abrams on the hit Fox collection, revealed his costars confronted him about his drug use whereas having dinner with Cory Monteith in 2010.

“I think we were filming two episodes [of Glee] at the same time [and] in the middle of it, flying to England to [perform on X-Factor],” he recalled on his and Ushkowitz’s “And That’s What You REALLY Missed” podcast on Monday, June 26. “And I was sick as a dog on all kinds of medicine including prednisone, which is a steroid, and it turned me into a monster.”

While the prescription gave him the “courage” to “fight” for his solo within the present’s season 2 “Thriller/Heads Will Roll” mashup, Ushkowitz, 37, and Rivera observed that the medication was altering his habits for the more serious.

“You were all like, ‘So, hey, so why are you taking these steroids?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, ‘cus I’m sick. I’m supposed to take them,’” McHale famous. “[You’re] like, ‘But it’s not the antibiotic, right?’ And I’m like, ‘No.’ You’re like, ‘OK, I think you should stop taking them.’”

Despite having just a few steroids left to take, the Texas native took his castmates’ recommendation and laid off the prescription. “[Jenna said], ‘Yeah, you’re not sleeping. You’re acting crazy. You need to stop taking them.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I think you’re right,’” McHale added. “I hadn’t slept in days. I was losing my mind.”

While he’s nonetheless shut with Ushkowitz — they launched their podcast in October 2022 — Rivera died on the age of 33 in July 2020 after saving her son, Josey, from drowning throughout a boating journey in Lake Piru, California.

McHale isn’t the one former Glee solid member to battle with substance abuse. Monteith died of an unintentional drug overdose on the age of 31 in July 2013. The British Columbia Coroners Service confirmed in a press release on the time that the Canada native “died of a mixed drug toxicity, involving heroin and alcohol.”

The podcast cohosts have been candid concerning the loss over time, as Ushkowitz completely informed Us Weekly in November 2022 that she felt like “when Cory died, the show died with him in many ways.” She added: “It became a different show … it was really hard to do and it was never the same, for me at least.”

Glee ran for six seasons from 2009 to 2015, with Monteith’s character, Finn Hudson, being killed off throughout the present’s fifth season.

McHale, for his half, informed Us he as soon as obtained “flack” for voicing the identical opinion concerning the present post-Monteith. “People on Twitter and all these things were saying that I was, like, talking crap about the show,” he shared. “I’m like, ‘No, no, no. I just said the show was never the same after Cory died because obviously it was not.’”