“If I’d complained about anyone or anything, she’d assumed I was b*tching about her,” Naya, 29, wrote in her book, Sorry, Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes & Growing Up. “Soon, she started to ignore me, and eventually it got to the point where she didn’t say a word to me for all of season six. Lea and I definitely weren’t the best of friends, and I doubt we’ll ever sit on her couch and eat kale together again, but the rumors of our ‘feud’ were blown out of proportion.”
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Naya stresses in her memoir that she doesn’t hate Lea, 30, and never did. “One of the Glee writers once said that Lea and I were like two sides of the same battery and that about sums us up,” she wrote. “We are both strong willed and competitive — not just with each other but with everyone — and that’s not a good mixture.”
She notes that it seemed like a friendship was forming between her and Lea in the early Glee years, but it just wasn’t meant to be. One of the main reasons Naya believes that her friendship with Lea disintegrated is because of Santana’s growing presence on the show.
“As the show progressed, though, that friendship started to break down, especially as Santana moved from a background character to one with bigger plot lines and more screen time,” Naya said. “I think Rachel — erm, I mean Lea — didn’t like sharing the spotlight. On top of that, she had a hard time separating work from our outside friendship, whereas it was a lot easier for me. I’m not offended when people offer feedback or criticism, and if things get heated on set, I try to keep perspective. We’re all stressed, yes, but we’re all working toward the same goal, so laugh it off and keep it movin’. Lea was a lot more sensitive, though, and it seemed like she blamed me for anything and everything that went wrong.”
Naya was a series regular from season 2 to season 5, but she was only a guest star in the show’s final season. While it was rumored Naya had been fired from the show, HollywoodLife.com learned EXCLUSIVELY that that wasn’t true. But the drama between Naya and Lea was very real!
HollywoodLifers, are you Team Naya or Team Lea? Let us know!