Lea Michele Says Career Focus 'Created a Lot of Blind Spots'

Lea Michele says her "extreme" focus on her career in the past "created a lot of blind spots" in her life.

In a recent sit-down interview, “The Drew Barrymore Show,” Michele spoke about her focus on work and how she has finally stepped into the shoes of Broadway's Fanny Brice — a role Michele has described in the past as a lifelong dream.

“I’ve been so career-focused my entire life. I think to a fault I think that I had, you know, just this sense of drive that created a lot of blind spots for me in my life,” Michele explained. “When I met my husband, like I said, it was a real sense of grounding for me, and then having our son and experiencing the challenges that we did throughout the pregnancy was something that unfortunately created a stronger bond in us.”

In March 2019, Michele married her husband, Zandy Reich. Nearly a year later, on August 2020, she announced that she’d given birth. During her pregnancy, Michele’s former castmate on “Glee” Samantha Marie Ware, accused the actor of making her life “a living hell” on Twitter.

Soon after, former Black castmates of the actor on “Glee” accused Michele of mistreatment in the workplace.

Michele would later apologize, writing in an Instagram post on June 3, 2020, that she didn't remember the specifics of the situations with Ware but “that’s not really the point, what matters is that I clearly acted in ways which hurt other people.”

Speaking to Barrymore on the Sept. 21 episode, Michele touched on how she is now putting her best foot forward, working to hold herself accountable for her actions.

“When you’re given a great opportunity as I have been with this — which I’m so incredibly grateful for as a performer as a person — I just feel like what I do now with this is on me,” she explained. “How I handle this. I’m really ready to take all of this on and do a great show every night, but also have fun with my cast, come home and celebrate with my family, which is something I never did before. I’m really enjoying being able to open my eyes to everything that’s going on around because it’s all good, and if it’s not fun, then why do we do it?”

CORRECTION (Sept. 21, 2022 at 10:30 PM): An earlier version of this story mistakenly spelled Lea Michele as "Leah Michele."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com