Who’s the one person Lea Michele admires more than anyone else in the world? Barbra Streisand. And what’s the one thing Michele allegedly can’t do? Read. So just imagine the pickle that the current star of Funny Girl on Broadway faced when the original Funny Girl announced this week that her memoir, My Name Is Barbra, would debut on November 7.
According to preorder listings, Streisand’s memoir is 1,040 pages long—which almost doesn’t feel long enough. Will she have enough pages to detail what it felt like to tie with Katharine Hepburn for best actress at the 1969 Academy Awards? Will she have the space to explain why, exactly, she decided to put a mall in her basement? Can we get a chapter devoted to her cloning her dog, and one about how she really feels about Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s A Star Is Born remake?
Either way, at more than 1,000 pages, the tome may be a heavy lift for even the most voracious reader. Which brings us back to Lea Michele—who, yes, does (allegedly) know how to read, despite the long-running internet joke that the erstwhile Glee star is actually illiterate. Michele’s previous attempts to downplay and seriously respond to the gag only turned it into a bigger thing—a shining example, ironically enough, of the Streisand effect. So finally, on Wednesday, the Funny Girl decided to get in on the joke.
In a new TikTok, Michele expressed her excitement for Streisand’s forthcoming memoir. “265 days to learn to READ!!!!” she wrote in an overlay on the video, which showed an overwhelmed Michele in front of a screenshotted post announcing My Name Is Barbra. Hey, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
With this clip, maybe it’s time for the rest of us to pack it in—to stop accusing Michele of illiteracy now that she’s playing along herself. But on the very off chance that Michele actually doesn’t know how to read, I truly believe that Barbra Streisand’s memoir is the one thing that could inspire her to learn. She could call up LeVar Burton, start watching Reading Rainbow, or get Hooked on Phonics in order to enjoy her personal hero’s memoir. All kidding aside, Lea—assuming you’re reading this, which I doubt you are—if the words-on-paper thing becomes too much, don’t worry. There’s always Audible.
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