Kevin McHale Slams ‘Diabolical’ Glee ‘Curse’ Comments After 3 Costars Died

Glee alum Kevin McHale has had enough with the chatter about a so-called “curse” on the Fox series following the deaths of three of his costars.

The actor, who portrayed Artie Abrams in the musical teen drama, posted a statement on X Wednesday, appearing to address longstanding comments about the show as people continued to bring up the deaths of Cory Monteith, Naya Rivera and Mark Salling. He did not mention them or the show by name.

“Let me log off today because the way too many of you talk about real people who have passed as a ‘sacrifice’ or a ‘curse’ in regards to a TV show is f—ing diabolical and untethered from any sort of humanity or reality,” McHale wrote. “Get f—ed”.

The idea of an apparent curse on those involved with Glee has long circulated online, gaining renewed traction with the 2023 docuseries The Price of Glee. The three-part special examined the deaths of three prominent cast members: Monteith, who died from a drug overdose in 2013 at age 31; Salling, who died by suicide in 2018 at age 35 after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography; and Rivera, who died from accidental drowning in 2020 at age 33 while saving her young son.

The docuseries also noted that the deaths were not isolated to the cast, pointing to several crew members who died unexpectedly since the show’s debut.

McHale has previously dismissed the “curse” idea. While he and his fellow castmates have used humor to process their grief, he has stressed the importance of maintaining perspective.

“We make jokes about a curse, which makes a lot of people uncomfortable,” he shared on the Elvis Duran Show in 2024. “The amount of times we’ve said some things that everyone gets really quiet, we’re like, ‘No no, you [don’t] understand, if we don’t laugh about this we will all just be sad'”.

And while he doesn’t believe in the curse, McHale has acknowledged that the deaths were “really crazy”. “I think it unfortunately is just a lot of horrible coincidences and accidents,” he explained. “It’s a big cast of a lot of young people and things happen. I think things happen on other shows as well and you’re working with crew members and things happen to crew members, you’re not necessarily hearing about that”.