Celebrity
Lea Michele Pays Tribute To Glee's Rachel Berry At The Tony Awards
And fans are here for it.
On Sunday, June 11, the 76th annual Tony Awards took place at the United Palace Theatre in New York City. Among the many standout moments during this year’s ceremony — which included Ariana DeBose’s unscripted opening monologue and Michael Arden’s viral acceptance speech — was Lea Michele’s show-stopping rendition of Funny Girl’s “Don't Rain on My Parade” which closed out the show to a standing ovation. Following her “spectacular” performance, as one fan described it, many viewers were quick to draw comparisons between Michele and her Glee character Rachel Berry, who performed the legendary Broadway track on multiple occasions throughout the show’s six-season run.
“Lea Michele performing ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’ at the Tonys… that’s Rachel Berry right there,” one fan gushed on Twitter. “It’s the Tony Awards tonight and I just watched Lea Michele perform a scene from Glee,” another fan joked, while one user also commented: “Glee was definitely a Lea Michele documentary.”
Taking to Instagram after her Tonys performance, Michele also paid tribute to her Glee character with a photo of herself on the United Palace stage, along with the caption: “Somewhere Rachel Berry is smiling.”
As Glee fans will recall, Rachel Berry’s most notable rendition of the song occurred in the Season 1 episode “Sectionals,” which has since racked up an impressive 12 million views on YouTube. Later in the hit series, Michele’s character goes on to perform the Funny Girl classic another two times, including in the Season 5 episode “Frenemies,” during which Berry belts out the track alongside Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera).
The 2023 ceremony wasn’t the first time Michele performed “Don’t Rain on My Parade” on the Tony Awards stage, as the TV-turned-Broadway star also performed the song back in 2010 alongside her Glee co-star, Matthew Morrisson.
