Glee star Kevin McHale has revealed that his co-stars Jenna Ushkowitz and Naya Rivera once staged an "intervention" for him over steroid use.
On a recent episode of the And That's What You Really Missed podcast, the actor shared that he became "sick as a dog" in 2011 while filming the second season of the series, and was prescribed "all kinds of medicine." This included the steroid prednisone, which is largely used to treat conditions involving inflammation, as well as heart conditions and asthma.
"It turned me into a monster," McHale said.
The actor, who played the wheelchair user and "glue" of the main cast Artie, noted that the medication gave him "courage" to "fight" for more featured parts in numbers, including the mashup of "Thriller/Heads Will Roll" in episode 11, The Sue Sylvester Shuffle. However, he said his castmates noticed a troubling shift in his behavior.
McHale recalled a time on a plane with Cory Monteith, when Rivera and Ushkowitz pulled him aside to speak privately.
"[They] were all like, 'So why are you taking these steroids?'" he recalled. "And I go, 'Well, because I'm sick and I'm supposed to take them. [They said], 'But it's not the antibiotic, right?' I'm like, 'No.' [They're] like, 'Okay, I think you should stop taking them.' And I was like, 'Why?!'"
The actor noted some of the behaviors his friends had pointed out, including "'You're not sleeping. You're acting crazy.'" He said they insisted again "'You need to stop taking them,'" which eventually convinced him to stop.
"I was like, 'Yeah, I think you're right,'" he continued. "I hadn't slept in days. I was losing my mind."
While McHale and his co-stars recognized that the drugs were prescribed for his health, and were "necessary" at the time, the actor said it was still "a hard lesson to learn."
