Entertainment
Broadway baby: Lea Michele is back where it all began
In 1965, the original musical “Funny Girl” was playing at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre, starring someone who knew her way around a song. That same year, a guy named Joe Allen opened a place a few blocks away. It was the place to be for Broadway stars like Al Pacino and a host of others. Plus, they served a mean cheeseburger.
The cheeseburgers are still there, and so are Broadway’s elite. Lea Michele has been coming here since her Broadway debut in the 1990s. “I just love this place so much,” she said.
And what would she eat? “A burger. I mean, it’s always so good, so good here, oh my God,” she said.
But when we met her at Joe Allen’s, she wasn’t in a burger mood, because she had a show to do. Lea Michele is currently starring in the musical “Chess.” In the show, she plays a brilliant strategist for two world champion chess players (played by Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher).
“Chess: The Musical”
“Chess” is a love triangle, a spectacle, and a chance for the stars to raise the roof at the Imperial Theatre – the same place where Michele made her Broadway debut in 1995 in “Les Miserables,” at the age of eight.
Her parents weren’t show biz people – Dad owned a deli – and before she auditioned, they had no clue their daughter could sing. “And as we were leaving, I turned to my Mom and I was like, ‘I’m gonna get this. I think I’m gonna get this,'” Michele recalled. “And she said, ‘Things like that don’t happen to people like us.'”
In this case, Mom was wrong: Michele got the part, and went on to even greater heights in the musical “Spring Awakening,” and later became a household name in the hit TV show “Glee.”
She hit a few bumps along the way, among them a difficult pregnancy with her first child in 2020, and flak on social media that she acted like a diva back in the “Glee” days. But things looked up in 2023, when she was asked to step into the shoes of her idol Barbra Streisand, and take over a struggling revival of “Funny Girl.”
She said, “I think that we all grow as we get older. It’s hard being in an industry where there is such a spotlight on these phases and times in your life.”
And what was the pressure like to take over “Funny Girl”? It was the first time that I was really sort of in the spotlight after everything that had happened to me personally,” Michele said. “I wanted to finally show everyone that I could play this part, and play her really well.”
Long story short, Michele killed it, and turned a sinking show into a hit, despite suffering a miscarriage during her run. And when she was approached about doing “Chess,” she told producers that having another baby came first. “And so my husband and I ended up doing IVF, which was in its own right very intense and challenging,” she said. “But you know, we got pregnant and had our daughter, who is wonderful and wild. And then they, you know, said, ‘Would you like to do the show?’ ‘Absolutely!'”
Now, the 39-year-old mother of two is back at the Imperial Theatre, where it all began, serving up another knockout performance with a side of gratitude.
I asked, “What do you think that eight-year-old girl would think, back in that same theatre?”
“I think that she’d be so proud, and she would just say, ‘Thank you,’ ’cause that’s all she wanted,” Michele said. “And it’s still what I want. My love for what I do was definitely reignited during ‘Funny Girl.’ And I’m very grateful for that. But I’m so happy to be here, and to be home.”
To hear Lea Michele perform “Someone Else’s Story,” from “Chess: The Musical,” click on the video player below:
WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Lea Michele (Video)
For more info:
Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.
Entertainment
Charlie Sheen updates on relationship with old pal Jon Cryer
Charlie Sheen has admitted he still hasn’t reached out to his Two and a Half Men co-star Jon Cryer despite repeatedly saying he intends to, and took a playful swipe at his old friend for being “a little grudgy” more than a decade after their famous falling-out.
Sheen was speaking at a For Your Consideration event for the Netflix documentary aka Charlie Sheen in Los Angeles on 22 April, where he was asked about reconnecting with Cryer, who also participated in the film.
“Every time this comes up, I say I’m going to [reach out to him] and I never do,” he told PEOPLE. “I don’t like to bother people. But I think Jon would be open to that. Jon’s a lovely man and a very talented guy.”
During the panel portion of the evening, Sheen couldn’t resist a gentle jab at Cryer’s absence.
“Jon’s not here tonight, is he? No, he’s a little grudgy like a decade and a half later. I’m like, ‘Dude, what the f—? I got over it. What are we doing, Jon?'”
He quickly softened, expressing genuine appreciation for everyone who agreed to participate.
“They could have easily said, ‘Go f— yourself. I’m not interested. I lived it. I don’t need to talk about it again.’ And I would have been, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ But they didn’t, and they stepped up.”
The documentary and Sheen’s memoir The Book of Sheen both landed in the same week in September 2025, with Sheen describing the experience of finally documenting his story as a relief.
“It’s documented, and I think told beautifully, visually and, hopefully, decently. There’s stuff in the book that’s not in the doc and vice versa, because there are things I couldn’t capture with the written word that [director Andrew Renzi] did visually, because some things you just have to see to feel it.”
He also recalled being uncertain about taking part at first, until Renzi laid out his case.
“He said, ‘Because you have a story that is unlike anyone who’s ever just in the business, but also outside of it.’ And then he went through listing stuff, and I’m like, alright, OK.”
Renzi put it plainly: “There’s only one Charlie Sheen… and there’s just not many people that would have had the life that he had that would want to talk about it, or are alive to talk about it.”
Sheen, who has been sober for eight years, said he would not have taken on either project while still in the grip of addiction.
“I think it always sort of had a happy ending attached to it, regardless of where the story went.”
Entertainment
Here’s real update on POTUS’s health
In a recent White House meeting, U.S. President Trump momentarily dozed off .
The incident sparked speculations about the 79-year-old president’s health, with a prominent medical expert indicating the symptoms may point to sleep apnea.
This video, which was recorded at the affordability event at the Oval Office on Thursday, displays Trump sitting with his eyes shut, jaw hanging loose, and head slumped down. Even though there have been no medical warnings made by the White House, it has generated a lot of discussions on social media.
A medical expert, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of Medicine and Surgery linked with CNN, weighed in on the matters.
Reiner wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter): “When a patient tells me that they can’t stay awake in meetings, we do formal sleep testing to look for sleep apnea.”
“The president continues to struggle with daytime somnolence. This is a common problem, and there are things that can be done to improve these symptoms,” he added.
In medical terms, sleep apnea is a condition where the patient suffers from a pattern of interruptions in breathing while sleeping.
The White House does not acknowledge any such medical condition, and President Trump has not yet had an officially scheduled annual physical examination in 2026, although he has been known to undergo semiannual physical exams. It has been observed that President Trump, who is turning 80 in June, holds fewer public meetings than he did in his first presidential term.
Concerning the POTUS ‘health, Congressman Ted Lieu said: “There’s something mentally wrong with the President of the United States. There is also something physically wrong… he can’t stay awake at public events with the cameras rolling.”
However, White House has maintained the stance of Trump’s good health. Until now, no official medical evaluation has been released.
Given these rising concerns, another video of Trump is circulating where he can be seen falling asleep and violently hitting his head on the desk. However, that specific video is fake and AI-generated.
Entertainment
Offset teases new album plans after recent shooting accident
Offset is coming back stronger after his shooting accident which altered his plans, but he still showed up – even taking the stage on a wheelchair.
The 34-year-old rapper spoke about his recovery and accident in a new interview, sharing how he kept his morale up and continued pushing himself.
“You’ve got to keep pushing like the Energizer Bunny, man. Keep this s— pushing. Don’t got time to be slowing down.” Offset told the Creators Inc. Podcast on Thursday, March 23.
Speaking about his performance mid-recovery, the Annihilate hitmaker noted, “You got to go G6 — G5, sorry. Had them bring the bed out, lay on that thing for six hours, go to sleep. You cool.”
The rapper also hinted at his new album in the same interview, saying, “I’m trying to drop soon. Couple months from now. I don’t got no date yet, but getting the creative and all s— to go together. Removing songs, making new songs, just off life because all my s— always be off of life experiences. You know what I mean? What happens in my real life, I just put it in my music.”
Despite the Florida accident, Offset shared that he maintains a “gladiator mentality” which motivates him to push forward instead of being held down by such incidents.
“The show don’t ever stop at the end of the day. I was blessed enough to be able to still move, you know what I mean? So, I’m still moving. I didn’t really have a checklist for it,” he said.
The Open It Up singer added, “I don’t want nobody feel sorry for me or no s— like that. People get shot every day, bro, like, I’m blessed. I can keep pushing, so why would I just sit down? I got to keep pushing. I got to keep going.”
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