The 'Glee' star reflects on a time when he was 'sick as a dog.'
Kevin McHale opened up about a difficult time in his life during the most recent episode of his podcast, And That's What You Really Missed, with co-host and former Glee co-star Jenna Ushkowitz.
As the pair were discussing a trip to London in 2010, McHale noted that in addition to the exciting outing, the trip also marked a memorable moment for him.
"You had an intervention with me. Do you remember this?" McHale, who played wheelchair-bound character Artie Abrams on Glee, asked Ushkowitz, who played Tina Cohen-Chang. "We had just started filming the Super Bowl episode."
Noting that the cast was filming two episodes at the same time and broke up filming with a work trip to England, McHale shared, "I was sick as a dog on all kinds of medicine, including Prednisone, which is a steroid and it turned me into a monster."
McHale noted that the medication "gave me the courage" to sing the lead on the cast's "Thriller/Heads Will Roll" mashup performance.
But despite this, McHale said that the medication affected his temperament.
"Cory [Monteith] and I had dinner together and you and Naya [Rivera] were one over from me, I think, and you were all like, 'So hey, so why are you taking these steroids?' And I go, 'Because I'm sick and I'm supposed to take them,'" McHale recalled, adding that Ushkowitz and Rivera told him he should stop taking the steroid, telling him, "You're not sleeping. You're acting crazy."
He admitted that his co-stars were right, noting, "I hadn't slept in days. I was losing my mind."
Ushkowitz said that the time period was "the beginning of the steroids for you."
"Yes, it was," McHale agreed without elaborating.
"Needed, needed, necessary, prescribed," Ushkowitz clarified.
"It was a hard lesson to learn," McHale said.
Monteith died in 2013 following a drug overdose. Rivera also died in 2020 after drowning in a tragic boating accident.
In late 2020, Ushkowitz and McHale spoke with ET about the aftermath of Rivera's death.
"We have been through this a couple times," McHale told ET at the time. "Shockingly, that doesn’t make it any easier, especially I think with the type of loss or the tragic unexpectedness of it all and again."
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