It’s Broadway’s biggest night of the year, and it looks like we might already have a diva down. Theater fixture Patti LuPone was nowhere to be found on Sunday night, despite being a three-time Tony winner and regular attendee of the awards ceremony. Hmmm, why do you think she missed it?
LuPone is not nominated for a Tony this year, but in true diva fashion, she made the entire week leading up to the ceremony about herself by insulting two Broadway actresses in a single New Yorker profile that was published toward the end of May. In the interview, she was asked about an incident last year in which Hell’s Kitchen actress Kecia Lewis called LuPone’s complaints about the noise coming from the musical’s rehearsals “offensive,” “racially microaggressive,” and “rooted in privilege.” When asked about the incident in the New Yorker last month, LuPone called Lewis a “bitch” who “doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.”
As if that weren’t enough, LuPone then called Broadway legend Audra McDonald, who had shared support on Lewis’s post via emojis, “not a friend,” claiming they’d been feuding for years. Later, when asked what she thought of McDonald’s turn as Gypsy’s Momma Rose — the same role for which LuPone nabbed her second Tony in 2008 — the 76-year-old stared at the New Yorker writer “for 15 seconds” before pivoting to making small talk about the weather. LuPone’s comments caused an uproar in the Broadway community, who quickly banded together to launch an open letter, calling for “accountability, justice, and respect.”
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Then LuPone did something truly unprecedented: She apologized. “I am deeply sorry for the words I used during The New Yorker interview, particularly about Kecia Lewis, which were demeaning and disrespectful,” she wrote in a statement released last week. “I regret my flippant and emotional responses during this interview, which were inappropriate, and I am devastated that my behavior has offended others and has run counter to what we hold dear in this community. I hope to have the chance to speak to Audra and Kecia personally to offer my sincere apologies.”
McDonald, who actually is up for an award this evening, told Gayle King last week that “if there’s a rift between us, I don’t know what it is.” She added, “You know, I haven’t seen her in about 11 years just because we’ve been busy just with life. So I don’t know what rift she’s talking about, but you’d have to ask her.”
Even though LuPone wasn’t at the Tonys, her presence certainly loomed large. A whole bunch of actors were asked about the Patti of it all on Sunday night’s red carpet, including Brooke Shields, who shared that she thinks LuPone has “balls.” Former Hamilton actress Renée Elise Goldsberry told Variety, “I love all of those women so much, and I know if they were all in a room together, there would just be love in there.” Well, it seems like that’s not going to happen tonight?
