‘Glee’ stars say Naya Rivera’s death led to cast healing

Has the “Glee” curse been broken?

While promoting their new podcast, “And That’s What You Really Missed,” co-stars Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz told Us Weekly that Naya Rivera’s untimely death in 2020 united the former cast in a new way.

“Everyone was so emotionally raw and just sort of like, ‘How is this happening? Why is this happening?’ Let’s talk about it,” McHale, 34, said Monday.

“Let’s talk about everything. … It was really nice that everybody could find a space to feel comfortable and open and trusting enough to do that.”

Rivera accidentally drowned in Lake Piru in California after trying to save her young son on July 8, 2020. Her death came as some cast members had started to open up about their troubling experiences on the hit Fox show.

In June 2020, Samantha Ware blasted co-star Lea Michele for committing “traumatic microaggressions” on the set of the show after the “Funny Girl” actress tweeted in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Ware claimed Michele had threatened to have her fired, humiliated her in front of their castmates and made her first television opportunity “a living hell.”

At the time, Heather Morris also entered the conversation with her own “unpleasant” experiences with Michele. Just this year, “The Glee Project” contestant Lindsay Pearce admitted to being scared of the actress.

Michele has blamed her past behavior on her “really hard” work ethic.

McHale noted the timing of the outcry and Rivera’s death.

“Thinking back on, like, funnily in the spirit of Naya, who would just speak her mind and was so good at making sure we all spoke our mind and spoke up for each other … it was weird timing,” McHale remembered. “Like, why is this happening now?”

Rivera wasn’t the first “Glee” cast member to die prematurely. Cory Monteith, who was dating Michele at the time, died in July 2013 from a heroin overdose.

“[Cory] did bring us together as well … but we were still doing the show,” Ushkowitz, 36, told the mag. “There was a lot to lose. There were, you know, jobs at stake. There was just a lot.

“Like Kevin said, after Naya passed, it was like we had a lot of space away from the show and a lot of time to process, and a lot of people had time to actually sit with their feelings,” she continued. “And I think that was also really good for us because we had had the time to reflect.”

The first episode of “And That’s What You Really Missed” dropped this week.