Audra McDonald has responded to Patti LuPone‘s recent disses.
Shortly after LuPone said that her fellow Broadway legend was “not a friend,” citing a past “rift” between them, McDonald told Gayle King for CBS Sunday Morning, “If there’s a rift between us, I don’t know what it is.”
“That’s something that you’d have to ask Patti about,” the Private Practice star continued. “I haven’t seen her in about 11 years, just because I’ve been busy, just with life and stuff. I don’t know what rift she’s talking about, you’d have to ask her.”
McDonald’s response comes days after LuPone made her feelings quite clear in a New Yorker profile published Monday (May 26). The subject first came up as LuPone was recalling a kerfuffle with Broadway’s Hell’s Kitchen, which was located next door to her own Broadway play The Roommate. LuPone had asked Shubert Organization head Robert Wankel to step in after sound from the Alicia Keys-created musical kept bleeding over from their neighbors, after which Hell’s Kitchen star Kecia Lewis posted a video on Instagram calling LuPone’s actions “bullying,” “racially microaggressive” and “rooted in privilege.”
When The New Yorker‘s Michael Schulman pointed out that McDonald had shown support for Lewis’ video in the comments, LuPone replied, “Exactly.”
“And I thought, You should know better,” LuPone continued at the time. “That’s typical of Audra. She’s not a friend.”
That’s when the publication noted that the two stage icons had previously “had some long-ago rift,” about which LuPone didn’t want to disclose details. When pressed for her review of McDonald’s current portrayal of Rose in Gypsy on Broadway — a role LuPone played and won a Tony for in a 2008-09 revival — LuPone simply stared at the writer pointedly for 15 seconds.
Watch McDonald address LuPone’s remarks below.
