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This past summer, Zachary Levi officially came out as a Trump supporter and has been showing his ass all over Twitter. He’s made it known for a while now that he’s hardcore Evangelical and anti-vaxx, but this latest embrace of all things MAGA has been super cringe to watch, particularly because he’s mixed his sh-tty opinions with a large dose of self-pity. You know how it goes with his type. His career is struggling and his showbiz friends supposedly don’t want to talk to him anymore because of his political beliefs. It has nothing to do with his less-than-charming personality.
Back in 2016, Zachary co-starred in the revival of the Broadway musical She Loves Me with beloved B-way actors Laura Benanti and Gavin Creel. Sadly, Gavin passed away from a rare, aggressive form of cancer in late September at 48 years young. It really shook the Broadway community because Gavin was a huge talent who was liked and respected by all of his peers. As people like him are wont to do, Zachary jumped on the “my friend died” bandwagon…only he took it one step further. He made an Instagram post that blamed the Covid vaccine for Gavin’s cancer. People were rightfully outraged. Last week, Laura appeared on Eric Williams’ “That’s a Gay Ass Podcast.” During her appearance, not only did Laura tell everyone just how much she hated working with Zachary, she also basically told him to eat sh-t, belting out “F-ck you forever” with her whole diaphragm.
Laura Benanti may have led the Broadway revival of “She Loves Me” with Zachary Levi in 2016, but the actress certainly doesn’t share the sentiment of the title. Benanti opened up about the ill feelings she maintains about her former co-star this week on the That’s a Gay Ass Podcast, hosted by Eric Williams.
“I never liked him. Everyone was like, ‘He’s so great!’ And I was like, ‘No, he’s not. He’s sucking up all the f-cking energy in this room. He wants to mansplain everybody’s part to them,’” Benanti said. “He really sucked everybody in with his dance party energy, like, ‘We’re doing a dance party at half-hour.’ I was like, ‘Good luck, have fun.’”
Benanti’s criticism of Levi reached an emotional peak when the conversation touched on their “She Loves Me” co-star Gavin Creel, who died in September at the age of 48. The Tony Award winner, whose Broadway credits also included “Hair,” “Hello, Dolly” and “Into the Woods,” died of a metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma. Speaking about Creel’s death on Instagram in October, Levi floated an unscientific theory tied to COVID vaccinations.
“I know that this is going to offend some people and make some people mad, and I wish it didn’t. A few weeks ago, my friend Gavin Creel died. He was 48 years old, and he was one of the healthiest people I knew. … You better believe that, with everything in me, I believe that if these COVID vaccinations were not forced on the American public…” Levi said before trailing off.
Benanti blasted Levi for using the topic of Creel’s death to spread vaccine misinformation: “For him to use Gavin’s memory — a person he was not friends with — to use his memory for his political agenda and to watch him try to make himself cry until he had one single tear, which he did not wipe away, I was like, ‘F—k you forever.’”
Whew, go off, Laura. Say it louder for those in the back. She is clearly a disciple of the Patti LuPone School of Not Giving a F-ck. I mean, there’s nothing like a mad woman, #amirite? What Zachary said was so inappropriate and out-of-line that I remember thinking at the time that this was a real turning point for him in terms of letting his R flag fly. There was no going back after that because in the name of his terrible views, he invoked an actor whose death left deep holes in his community. Meh.
It’s a bummer that Chuck ended up being such a massive douche bag because I loved that show while it was airing. They also had the *best* Comic-Con panels. Oh, well, this is why we can’t have nice things. Also, WTF is this dance party thing for grown-ass adults who are doing their jobs and not participating in a high school production? Ugh, how annoying. I also would have been over it after the first time.
Photos credit: Getty, IMAGO/Barbara Hine/Avalon and Robin Platzer/Twin Images/Avalon
She’s absolutely right and good for her.
Gavin Creel was an incredibly talented person, respected and loved by all who knew him from the accounts I’ve seen.
How dare that douchebag claim his friendship then spout MAGA lies.
PS: I don’t know how many times I’ve watched snippets of Gavin in Hair or watched him have blast on stage with Aaron Tveit for Miscast – but it’s a lot.
He can FRO
It’s also common knowledge in the community that Gavin did not like Zachary so for Zachary to act like they were friends is insane behavior.
It’s funny you mention comic con. He seems to be a guy who subsists on external validation and the NerdHQ at SDCC was the one place he got it the most. Losing the ability to host it (he had some conflicts with the SDCC organizers) was a huge blow for him and his path to the nuthouse does seem to coincide with the demise of that event.
I was going to say this! He has hosted SO many panels. As someone who passes through a number of “fandoms”, seeing him interview or moderate panels for super wide ranging groups was kind of wild.
And then I was always like “Flynn rider? No. Wait. He’s an evangelical d bag.”
Want to note what I meant by my summation of his character. He uses religion as a weapon and he’s been a complete a$$hole for a long long time. Evangelical is one of the few religions that’s actually growing in numbers in recent years in the USA and it’s because it has become synonymous in many circles with white nationalists and maga.
This makes me so frakkin’ happy. Everyone must fight with their whole chest.
*Also, WTF is this dance party thing for grown-ass adults who are doing their jobs and not participating in a high school production?*
I think he’s an absolute DH and I’m gloating with the schadenfreude of his career flops, and cheering Laura for saying all of this with her whole chest. But to be fair this is a very very standard thing to do when you’re rehearsing a musical theatre show. It’s a very standard part of rehearsal warmups, you always start a rehearsal with some kind of physical ice breaker/warmup (and most actors would prefer this to their 897,790th round of Zip Zap Boing). It’s not like they’re in an office trying to get on with their work and some jackass is trying to get everyone up and dancing: getting everyone up and dancing is very literally their job.
It feels like ZL was using his dance captain energy to cover for the darker sides of his personality and to manipulate others, which is bad, but it’s not innately bad or unusual to dance and lead group dance during rehearsals for a dance show.
Ugh, antivaxxers and their absolutely unscientific variations of turbo cancer.
Zachary Levi and his particular brand of evangelical conspiracy theorist really needs to disappear forever. I even fast forward his scenes in Thor Dark World now, because he’s become unwatchable to me.
I like her no holds barred interview! He deserves to lose his career for that insensitive post.
Wackos like ZL have no self awareness, let alone compassion, about their views or “beliefs.” I can’t stand how people like him always have to get their little jabs in, even at times when people are grieving a death.
I can’t even put together a complete statement on how much I hate that.
I am amazed when people in the entertainment ecosystem can’t separate the fact that they have a platform from their having a job. Like, does this guy not understand that he’s killing his career? This reminds me of that wrestler turned actress who was in a StarWars franchise who spouted off on vaccine causing Disney to part ways with her. A few months later she was complaining about not getting jobs.
There are LEGIONs of talented people out there who can be great AND read the room. There’s not going to be a director or casting director out there saying yeah we’ve got to have THIS radioactive nut job stinking up our show. Why hire him for anything?
He’s gonna start starting with that woman from full house in white straight Christian Christmas rom coma in 3….2…..
Because he’s a jerk and people aren’t keen on working with him, he was already self-slackening his career. He’s building his victim-portfolio: “I used to be a star and the intolerant left sheeple woke mind bastards took it all away just because I stand for freedom of speech.”
Levi is a disgusting fraud who should be shunned by decent people for life. Dumb grinning buffoon. Laura told the truth with her gold chest and I’m glad she did.
She got me with his mansplaining Broadway veterans’ roles to them. I know so many nerdy men like this. You know the ones who have to believe they’re so much smarter than everyone else in the room? They’re just one rejection by a girl who should love him because they’re all “good guys” , valid criticism of their work performance, and/or Internet wormhole away from going full MAGA.
Levi was also in Marvelous Mrs Maisel, playing a doctor (!), and I wonder what the cast thought of him. The political views he has don’t seem to align with the creators and actors in that show, as far as I know.
I love her, and totally agree with her sentiments here.
I don’t know any of these people but I applaud Laura Benanti; the utter gall of the guy, using the death of a co-worker–and claiming friendship!–to spout his anti-vax BS is beyond the pale. If he’s lucky he’ll be doing musicals on cruises from here on out. IF he’s lucky.
“He was 48 years old, and he was one of the healthiest people I knew” Sooooooo what? Were you his doctor? Are you A doctor?
Typical yt man arrogance thinking that because he didn’t see anything wrong that something weird must be afoot. How does he not understand that healthy people can get sick too? The false superiority complex with his type is staggering.
Right? Healthy people fall ill, sometimes with terrible, incurable diseases. It happens.
It’s such a stupid argument too – like no one ever got cancer before 2020.
Awfully convenient timing he blasts he knocked up his soon to be baby mama. To deflect the story.
For someone that is so extreme right wing born again Christian conservative. He has no problem having babies out of wedlock. I do love a good hypocrite. Oh and she is 27 and he is 44. Sounds like he just grabbed the first young woman that he could impregnate. Good luck to her.
And yes F U 4EVA for using Gavin Creel death to push your tin foil hat agendas.
Your career bombed because you suck.
She was on Americas Next Top Model and was a bit of a twit. The age gap doesn’t bother me but they have not been together long at all—so this definitely seems like a “I wanna knock up a young gal asap” pregnancy.