On the defense. Heather Morris spoke out on social media following a fan’s “offensive” edit of a photo of her Glee costars.
On December 7, a fan shared multiple stills from season 2’s holiday episode. “ten years ago today, a very glee christmas aired,” the tweet read. “Artie got his magic legs, we all fell in love with coach beiste, and brittany reignited the magic of christmas for everyone.”
Kevin McHale, who portrayed Artie in the Fox series, which aired from 2009 to 2015, retweeted the message, adding, “This album goes hard tho.”
Morris, 33, then responded to his tweet, pointing out that Mark Salling — who played Noah Puckerman on the show — was covered with a vomit-face emoji. “The vomit face on Marks face is offensive,” the Dancing With the Stars alum wrote.
In 2017, Salling pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography after a search warrant uncovered more than 50,000 images in question on his computer as well as a thumb drive. His sentencing was scheduled for March 2018, but in January 2018, Salling died by suicide. The actor was 35.
Morris’ tweet received many mixed responses, with some agreeing with the actress. “Mark was their friend & as messed up as his choices were, he was still a person with a family & people that loved him,” one fan wrote. “Separating a person’s behavior from who they are & still loving them, despite their shortcomings, is the mature thing to do.”
Others did not agree. “If someone was my best friend then they ended up being a pedophile, hell no they getting cut out of my life completely, they can rot,” one of her followers responded.
Although McHale, 32, didn’t directly respond to his costar’s tweet, he did like one response, that read, “I agree that cancel culture is toxic in most cases, but in this one. there are just some things in life you simply don’t do. And I hope anyone that feels like they need to do that gets the help that they need instead/before doing something that will impact lives beyond their own.”
The So You Think You Can Dance alum mourned the death of Salling via Instagram one month after his death, sharing a quote from author Robert M. Drake. “One day you’ll make peace with your demons, and the chaos in your heart will settle flat. and maybe for the first time in your life, life will smile right back at you and welcome you home,” the quote read. Morris captioned the photo, “#markwaynesalling,” and added a broken-heart emoji.
