![\"Karen](\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Screen-Shot-2025-06-02-at-7.10.09-PM-e1748978754483-300x236.png\")
<\/a>Karen Salkin and Patti LuPone in a scene from Life Goes On.<\/p><\/div>\n
Yes, Patti LuPone\u00a0is basically a bi-atch, but an uber-talented one. I\u2019m pretty sure that she never\u00a0cares about being Miss Congeniality\u2014she is just very confident, correctly, that her extreme talent speaks for itself.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s what\u2019s going on with her now, which is happening right before the all-important Tony Awards, to boot:<\/p>\n
It all started when Patti was\u00a0recently starring in a play on Broadway with Mia Farrow, and their theatre shared a wall with the building that houses the Alicia Keys musical,\u00a0Hell’s Kitchen<\/em>. And that<\/em> show\u2019s sound cues were coming through the wall. So, following the advice from her stage manager, Patti asked a higher-up in that other theatre\u2019s producers group to help them resolve the issue, (a move with which I totally agree, by the way.) Any<\/em> normal person would be upset with that situation, but especially a serious actress.<\/p>\n The great Patti LuPone.<\/p><\/div>\n Patti is one hundred percent correct about noise from a loud musical bleeding onto her stage! It has annoyed me as simply an audience member, so I can’t imagine how disruptive it is to people who are trying to act<\/em>! As a matter of fact, I experienced a similar situation when I was reviewing a play just a few years ago, and this is what I wrote in my critique: \u201cBut the douchebag restaurant next door, Tar and Roses, feels that it\u2019s necessary to blast music at night, no matter how much that affects the goings-on in the theatre. So that muffled pounding noise goes on during the entire second act! Those creeps couldn\u2019t wait an hour to do that?! Like they\u2019re going to lose any business because of it. (And their food sucks, too.)\u201d So anyone from that<\/em> show\u2019s audience can certainly understand Patti\u2019s plight.<\/p>\n During that recent run of her Broadway play, Patti said the musical next door was \u201ctoo loud,\u201d referencing her own artistic experience with how it affected the production she was in at the time. And when the issue was fixed, she\u00a0sent flowers to the Hell\u2019s Kitchen\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0sound and stage management team to thank them for their help, which was very classy of her. That should have been the end of the conflict. It should have been my<\/em> favorite saying\u2014dot, dash, end of story.<\/p>\n But one of the stars of Hell’s Kitchen<\/em>,\u00a0Kecia Lewis, kicked-up a fuss on social media, deeming LuPone\u2019s asking for that sound adjustment and calling the musical \u201ctoo loud\u201d to be \u201cbullying,” \u201coffensive,\u201d \u201cracially microaggressive,\u201d \u201crude,\u201d and \u201crooted in privilege.\u201d Wow.<\/p>\n Karen Salkin and Patti LuPone sharing a laugh in another scene from Life Goes On.<\/p><\/div>\n So, before I continue, I have to explain my own<\/em> personal experience with Patti LuPone, so you see from whence my perspective in coming. She and Mr. X worked closely together on a TV series back in the day, and adored each other. (So at least she has excellent taste.) I<\/em>\u00a0even appeared on an episode of that show with her once. Because of those connections, we were at several parties together over the years. And while I have always totally admired her talent, I never really liked her, the feeling of which I\u2019m sure was mutual.<\/p>\n BUT\u2026nothing she said about that loud music situation has anything to do with race or privilege<\/em>!!! It was all about work<\/em>. Period. It\u2019s obnoxious of Kecia Lewis to try to spin Patti\u2019s words like that! And I promise you, my sticking-up for Ms. LuPone like this is really saying something. Personal feelings aside, I believe in truth, honesty, and fairness, so I have to call it like I see it. And in this case, Kecia Lewis definitely outmatched Patti LuPone in bitchiness. If there was any<\/em> racism involved, it was on the part of Kecia<\/em> towards Patti to try to accuse her<\/em> of it!!!<\/p>\n And knowing Patti so well, Mr. X and I had hearty laughs when we read that in a recent interview with The New Yorker<\/em>, she said that Lewis \u201cdoesn\u2019t know what the f— she\u2019s talking about,” and then added, (in reference to how few Broadway productions Lewis has been in,) \u201cDon\u2019t call yourself a vet, bitch!” We, of course, know that you really cannot say stuff like that in public, but we laughed because it\u2019s sooo Patti.<\/p>\n Audra McDonald as Mama Rose in Gypsy.<\/p><\/div>\n Now this is where the entire nasty episode blew-up: Subsequent to the Lewis post, Patti\u2019s Broadway frienemesis, (a word I coined years ago for my sixth grade best friend and nemesis, Mindy Fain,) Audra McDonald, \u201cliked\u201d the mean-about-Patti post, causing Patti to point-out in her interview with the New Yorker<\/em> that Audra is \u201cnot a friend,\u201d due to a rift a long time ago. On a morning TV show shortly after that story came-out, Audra confirmed that they haven\u2019t seen each other in almost a dozen years. So, to my mind, it\u2019s no harm, no foul. Right?<\/p>\n However, here\u2019s another big BUT: Audra is up for a Tony this weekend for playing Mama Rose in the revival of Gypsy<\/em>, a role for which Patti deservedly won a Tony in 2008. So there\u2019s that<\/em>\u00a0tantalizing tidbit.\u00a0And in that same New Yorker<\/em> interview, Patti appeared to be rooting for Nicole Scherzinger, who is also<\/em> nominated in the same category, for one of Patti\u2019s own former roles, as the star of Sunset Blvd.<\/em> It\u2019s all very dramatic. And very old-black-and-white-movie-esque of Broadway! [Note: I hate repeating people\u2019s names so many times, but it makes the stories clearer than just saying \u201cshe\u201d and \u201cher\u201d over and over!]<\/p>\n The penultimate kicker to all of this is that over five hundred people in the Broadway community have signed an open letter to Patti, criticizing her for her comments in the New Yorker article. That\u2019s just creepy of them all. Jealous much?<\/p>\n Patti LuPones’ full apology statement.<\/p><\/div>\n So, to try to get this fiasco behind her, Patti issued a public apology, saying in part, \u201cI made a mistake, I take full responsibility for it, and I am committed to making this right. Our entire theatre community deserves better.\u201d You just know that someone behind the scenes forced her into doing that. I actually feel bad for her over it\u2014I know she was choking on the statement. She was just speaking her mind to begin with, which she obviously should not have, but even I<\/em> feel that what she said was more amusing than mean. But oh well. Let\u2019s hope the sad incident<\/em> is all over, and not her career<\/em>! That would really be a shame.<\/p>\n To wrap it all up, I believe that this whole debacle will propel Audra to yet another Tony win this Sunday, which will infuriate Patti. Even though she\u2019s<\/em> not nominated for anything this year, she already has three<\/em> Tonys to Audra\u2019s astonishing six<\/em>, so this would be the latter\u2019s seventh, which Patti would take as a personal loss. And she loathes<\/em> losing.<\/p>\n And I should know. Because I actually beat her at something. It wasn\u2019t an acting award, but I consider it to be my<\/em>\u00a0Tony!\u00a0Here\u2019s the link again to my latest YouTube video about that fun tale: www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k1DWrs5Om_U<\/a>. I doubt you\u2019ll be surprised by any of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PATTI LUPONE DEBACLE (WITH NEW VIDEO!) Okay, my mouth is literally watering to weigh-in on this one!\u00a0 Having actually known and spent time with the diva herself back in the day, (and just published a new video which I can reveal now is, indeed, about Patti, even though I don\u2019t name her in the tale,<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/PattiLuPone-DouglasFriedman_2-e1748979958139-300x261.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Karen](\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Screen-Shot-2025-06-02-at-7.07.08-PM-e1748979104200-238x300.png\")
<\/a>![\"Audra](\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/75-e1748979876386-300x240.jpeg\")
<\/a>![\"Patti](\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Screenshot-2025-06-03-at-10.58.29\u202fAM-e1748978636343-232x300.png\")
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