Patti LuPone Divides the Internet

Mama’s talkin’ loud. And boy, did she have a lot to say.

“The entire interview is so balls to [the] wall funny, I adore Patti LuPone so much.”

“Hate Patti LuPone and have for years… she’s not a diva or an icon, she’s just a rude old lady who thinks she’s God’s gift to theatre.”

That was the polarity of responses online from Michael Schulman’s recent New Yorker profile of “one of New York City’s last living broads,” Patti LuPone, that crash landed online on Sunday. In March of last year, I wrote about what I called the celebrity profile dry spell, a trend I feel has largely continued. This profile, at every turn, was lush with the kind of brashness you only get from someone who’s both seen it all and has come away from it deeply impressed. He calls her “famed and feared for her salty bravado” and it’s on full display throughout the profile, whether she’s telling a group of diners to pipe down, telling the New York Rangers team to strip naked or calling fellow Broadway vet Kecia Lewis a bitch. In fact, the profile warranted a slew of second wave stories, including:

“Every Star Patti LuPone Insults in Her Savage New Interview, from Glenn Close to Audra McDonald and Ex Kevin Kline.”

But it’s her comments about Lewis and fellow Mama Rose Audra McDonald that have fans divided, with some celebrating LuPone’s signature unhinged, say-what’s-really-on-your-mind temperament and others feeling like she chose to double down on something that instead warranted an apology. I’ll admit I came away from the interview finding it quite refreshing in candor and not at all out of step with the LuPonian brand of having no fucks left to give (see: her calling Madonna a “movie killer” or her calling Tr*mp a “motherfucker.”) But at the same time, I did question if her targets here warranted her venom. Like, I loved the dish, but wasn’t sure if she chose the right restaurant to serve it at. When you have Viola Davis in the comments section writing, “I will fight for them as fervently as I fight for anyone I love,” it might be a tell that you, the instigator, are waging the wrong battle.

Some table-setting. Late last year, LuPone called Hell’s Kitchen, the Alicia Keys musical that was playing next door to her play, The Roommate, “too loud.” At her stage manager’s suggestion, LuPone called Robert Wankel, the head of the Shubert Organization, and asked him if he could fix the noise problem. It was hastily handled, and LuPone sent thank you flowers to the crew as a gesture of goodwill. The musical’s star, Tony Award-winner Kecia Lewis, wasn’t impressed. In a six-minute video posted to Instagram, Lewis noted that: 

“These actions, in my opinion, are bullying. They’re offensive, they are racially microaggressive, they’re rude, they’re rooted in privilege. And these actions also lack a sense of community and leadership for someone as yourself, who has been in the business as long as you have.”

therealkecialewis

A post shared by @therealkecialewis

LuPone was asked about the incident by Schulman in the profile and didn’t mince words.

“‘Oh, my God,’” LuPone said, balking, when I brought up the incident. ‘Here’s the problem. She calls herself a veteran? Let’s find out how many Broadway shows Kecia Lewis has done, because she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.’ She Googled. ‘She’s done seven. I’ve done thirty-one. Don’t call yourself a vet, bitch.’ (The correct numbers are actually ten and twenty-eight, but who’s counting?) She explained, of the noise problem, ‘This is not unusual on Broadway. This happens all the time when walls are shared.’”

The responses online were swift from those sweeping in to defend Lewis, whose career has spanned decades and is beloved amongst the theater community. “Saying that a Black woman who has been on Broadway since 1985 is not a vet is… a choice,” read one tweet. “Patti LuPone??? You mean the Azealia Banks of the American Theatre,” read another (Azealia, it should be noted, herself tweeted “AUDRA MCDONALD SUPREMACY”). “Listen I appreciate Patti LuPone and her contributions to theatre as much as anyone else but she’s crossed the line one too many times. I’m tired of her actions being passed off as ‘diva behavior’ when in reality she’s just mean spirited,” read yet another. Many were incensed not just by her comments about Lewis, but at the strays caught by Audra McDonald a paragraph later when Schulman brought up that McDonald had given Lewis’s video supportive emojis in the comment section.

“‘Exactly,’” LuPone said. ‘And I thought, You should know better. That’s typical of Audra. She’s not a friend’—hard ‘D.’ The two singers had some long-ago rift, LuPone said, but she didn’t want to elaborate. When I asked what she had thought of McDonald’s current production of Gypsy, she stared at me, in silence, for fifteen seconds. Then she turned to the window and sighed, ‘What a beautiful day.’”

Hours later, Time Magazine shared an advanced copy of the upcoming cover with McDonald and the headline “Broadway’s Greatest.”

Was it kind of LuPone? Not at all. Was it necessary? Of course not. Is this par for the course with the LuPone that many of us know and love and often celebrate for her candidness? It sure is. The difference here is her targets. Unlike Madonna or Tr*mp, LuPone went after two beloved figures within her own community. I think this is a classic case of two things can be true: It was absolutely disrespectful of LuPone to minimize Lewis’s resume and to name-call. And it’s also true that Patti LuPone has never (and I think it’s safe to say will never) concern herself with respectability. As was proven in every paragraph of this profile, she takes no prisoners. Is that mode of candor for everyone? Certainly not. And I don’t find it hard to imagine that LuPone prefers it to be that way.

Kecia Lewis has made a name for herself and left a mark on Broadway that is undeniable (to everyone outside of LuPone). Patti LuPone calling you a bitch in The New Yorker could, with the right perspective, be viewed as a badge of honor. After all, Kecia Lewis is currently on Broadway. LuPone is not. As for Audra? The same can be said. And while it’s juicy to get breadcrumbs of a freud between two of Broadway’s biggest divas (complimentary), I think McDonald will shrewdly stay mum on this and maybe it’ll come up in a future interview once the dust settles and she’ll have something deliciously bitchy to comment in response.