WhyGleeStars Hate This 'Very Offensive' Christmas Episode: 'It's Supposed to Be Controversial'

Mar. 15, 2025

From left: Chris Colfer, Naya Rivera and Lea Michele in Glee’s 2013 ‘Previously Unaired Christmas’.Photo:Adam Rose / Fox / Courtesy Everett

Adam Rose / Fox / Courtesy Everett

Fans might love a Christmas episode — but they’re not all created equal.

Kevin McHaleandJenna Ushkowitz, who played Artie and Tina onGlee,respectively, opened up about the show’s season 5 Christmas episode “Previously Unaired Christmas Episode” on the Dec. 15 episode of their recap podcast,And That’s What You REALLY Missed. And the pair were definitely not fans.

From left: Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Naya Rivera in Glee’s 2013 ‘Previously Unaired Christmas’.Adam Rose / Fox / Courtesy Everett

“So they’re prefacing this basically in this meta way of being like, it was crazy,” Ushkowitz, 38, explained on the podcast. She noted that their “expectations” for these season 5 episodes were “quite low” and she gives everyone “grace” because they filmed not long afterstar Cory Monteith died. Still, she and McHale, 36, were not impressed.

McHale said that when they started doing the podcast, they knew some portions of the show hand’t aged well. But, Ushkowitz added, when they were filming this episode 11 years ago, “We knew it was very offensive.” The point was to be funny, but neither thought the episode actually worked.

The most questionable part, they said, was a sequence at the end of the episode in which the cast performs an over-the-top disco nativity with the song “Love Child” in order to convince Kitty (Becca Tobin) to play the Virgin Mary in the real nativity. “I just remember shooting this number being like, ‘Wow, we’ve really hit our bottom,' " Ushkowitz said.

“You had to commit so hard because it was so bad,” she explained, remembering that she thought at the time, “If I don’t commit to this, it actually will make it worse.”

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

And That’s What You REALLY Missedis Ushkowitz and McHale’s second podcast. They also talked aboutGleeon their old show,Showmance, but on the new pod,they told PEOPLE in 2022, they dive a little deeper and feel more free to be honest.

Still, McHale said, the positive memories outweigh the bad ones. “Actually, I think Jenna said this. She said, ‘For every one bad or negative thing that happened, there were a hundred positive and joyful things that happened,’ " he explained.

The cast of Glee in season five. From left: Jenna Ushkowitz, Naya Rivera, Kevin McHale, Chris Colfer, Harry Shum, Amber Riley, Chord Overstreet and Darren Criss.Adam Rose / Fox / Courtesy Everett

“I think just being able to look back, it’s sort of like, if you can look back at high school or college. You look back on that experience in your life, whatever it may be, and you’re like, ‘Oh, you know what? It was an incredible learning experience for myself. I made a lot of incredible friends,’ " he said. “And I think that the biggest thing for us is to be able to look back on it in a positive way.”

source: people.com