Those of us who were Gleeks in the first half of the 2010s know that Glee could get extremely weird, especially towards the end. But even the earlier seasons certainly had their moments, and slushies weren’t the only things that the members of New Directions got covered in.
Kevin McHale (Artie Abrams) and Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina Cohen-Chang) have a Glee podcast called And That’s What You Really Missed. And they recently revealed that an episode in which the Gleeks get drunk and have to perform hungover was inspired be a real-life drunken incident on set.
“We got drunk on set y’all,” McHale said. “We got caught having a dance party at base camp — where our trailers are — after going to lunch and having a little bit of some substances. And by substances I mean sake. Then the producers came down and they partook in our dance party…but then went back and snitched on us and we got in trouble. And they wrote an episode about it,” Ushkowitz explained.
In the episode, New Directions are meant to be performing a song to the school about the dangers of drinking, but they all get drunk the night before at Rachel’s house party. While performing, Brittany (Heather Morris) and Santana (Naya Rivera) end up puking all over Rachel.
To be honest, the puking incident is far from the weirdest thing to happen on Glee, as most of the plot-lines feel like a fever dream. It’s good that McHale and Ushkowitz can now fill us in on what was going on behind-the-scenes, as we definitely could use that context!
Check out our guide to the best teen movies and the best musicals. Also, be sure to check out our countdown of the best TV series of all time. All six seasons of Glee can be found on Disney Plus.