Glee star Heather Morris faced backlash on Thursday (Dec. 17) after replying to a tweet involving Mark Salling.
It started when Kevin McHale, who played Artie in the hit musical comedy series, retweeted a fan’s post about the festive season 2 episode, “A Very Glee Christmas.” The tweet featured a vomiting emoji over Salling’s face in a screenshot of the episode.
The actor, who played Puck, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography charges in 2017. The plea agreement stated a search warrant found more than 50,000 images of child porn on Salling’s computer and a thumb drive. Prosecutors agreed to ask a judge to sentence the actor to between four and seven years in prison and require him to register as a sex offender, pay restitution and follow residency restrictions. Two months before his March 7, 2018 sentencing, he committed suicide at age 35.
Morris replied to McHale’s tweet, sharing that “the vomit face on Marks [sic] face is offensive.”
Glee fans flooded Morris’ replies with criticism, expressing disapproval that she seemingly chose to side with Salling, whose crimes were worse than an emoji.
The actress took to Twitter on Friday (Dec. 18) to defend her thoughts on her late co-star. “I don’t feel the need to ever justify something because somethings are better left unsaid,” she wrote. “Y’all who have lots of things to say, I get it, I UNDERSTAND you…somethings are unforgivable. But this holiday season, amongst ALL holiday seasons is INCREDIBLE hard for so many of us.”
“We did not loose [sic] just 2 cast members, we lost 3,” she continued, in reference to Cory Monteith, who died in 2013, and Naya Rivera, who died in July 2020. “And it is SO incredible tough to have to act like that 3rd one is invisible, because even though his actions are unjustifiable, he was a part of our family at one point and he was mentally SICK.”
She concluded by stating, “THANK YOU for treated me with such disrespect and unkindness during a time that I can’t get through a day without balling my eyes out at the loss of my entire Glee family… thank you.”
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